Jean Smart suggests using the money for an Oscars telecast to rebuild L.A. instead

Los Angeles is currently dealing with the devastation of the most destructive wildfires in the county’s history. Residents’ homes and businesses have been destroyed and damaged, and the entertainment industry has been affected in myriad ways so far. The crisis comes during awards season—a season which, Jean Smart says, might as well wrap up so that the community can rebuild. 

In an Instagram post shared on Wednesday, Smart wrote, “Attention! With ALL due respect, during Hollywood’s season of celebration, I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have garnered to victims of the fires and the firefighters.”

This past Sunday, Smart won the Golden Globe for her role in Hacks. It was one of the first major events of the awards season calendar and one of the last to go on as regularly scheduled. The Oscar nominations have been delayed because of the fires, but Oscar campaigning has more or less been cut short. Typical events where prospective nominees would go to shake hands and kiss babies like the BAFTA Tea Party and the AFI Awards luncheon have been canceled. Though it is, as Smart would note, probably the least important consequence of the crisis, the fires have interrupted the politicking studios and stars are usually getting up to this time of year. 

Many in the Hollywood community and beyond have experienced the effects of the fires firsthand as we continue to see catastrophic damage reported across the region. Last night, Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis appeared on the Tonight Show encouraging viewers everywhere to invest in emergency preparedness because “Whether you need it or not now, you will need it.” The Los Angeles Times most recently reported that five people have died, more than 2,000 structures have burned, and at least 130,000 residents are under evacuation orders.