Mary J. Blige makes Oscars history as the first double nominee for Best Song and Best Supporting Actress
Mary J. Blige made history tonight at the 90th Academy Awards: As presenter Taraji P. Henson noted, Blige is the first person to ever receive double nominations for Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actress. Fortunately, it’s a year that the Oscars are featuring musical performances, so Blige was able to wow the crowd with her rendition of the gospel-inspired song “Mighty River” from Mudbound—the same movie for which she received her acting nomination playing a sharecropper’s wife in the Jim Crow south.
While our own film editor A.A. Dowd predicts that the Best Supporting Actress award will likely go to either Allison Janney for I, Tonya or Laurie Metcalf for Lady Bird, at least Blige has already nailed the tricky performing-live-in-front-of-millions-of-people part of the evening.