Why was Kieran Culkin's Oscars 2025 speech censored? Explained

Maybe it was nervousness, maybe it was excitement—whatever it was, it got a certain part of Kieran Culkin's Oscar 2025 speech censored. The Home Alone actor who received his first Academy Award recently was on the stage, and he said something in the flow that we moviegoers will be talking about in funny conversations.

While appreciating Jeremy Strong, who was also among the nominees, Culkin slipped the f-bomb during the speech, of course, unintentionally, but that part had to be censored. Then, he went on to give a heartfelt tribute to his wife, who was present in the audience.

The ceremony called it a day after over four hours and gave us the best of the best from last year, where Anora beat The Brutalist to the top. The former won five out of six nominations, while the latter swiped three out of its ten nominations. A Real Pain, for which Kieran Culkin was nominated, was nominated for a couple of awards too.

So what did Kieran Culkin say again?

Robert Downey Jr. stood on the stage with his sassy-as-ever personality, asking the audience to "pucker up" as he announced the winner of the award: Kieran Culkin. He thanked the audience with a gesture before he went ahead to accept the accolade.

And then it happened.

He said,

"He's right, by the way (referring to Robert Downey Jr., who praised Jeremy Strong while presenting nominees). Jeremy, you're amazing in The Apprentice. I love your work, it’s f**king great."

Well, we say, it might've been the nervousness only as it was his first ever Oscar, and the legend (Downey) passed him the torch, and he was standing just behind him.

A Real Pain became a real pleasure for the actor as it won him some more major awards other than the Oscars. That includes the BAFTA Awards, Critics' Choice Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and more.

What award did he win exactly?

Culkin won the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars for his portrayal of Benji, the free-spirited cousin of Jesse Eisenberg's character in A Real Pain, David Kaplan. Eisenberg was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay, too, but that went to Sean Baker for Anora.

Last year, it was Downey who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer; that movie went on to win seven out of its thirteen nominations.

The film sees a couple of cousins on a Jewish heritage tour using funds left from their now-deceased grandmother, where we see Eisenberg's David being more introverted in contrast to Culkin's Benji. They hope to connect with family history in this traveling adventure.

Jesse Eisenberg shared in an interview with Sundance Film Festival's Give Me the Backstory! that the film originally was a thought experiment. He went on to explain that,

"My initial inspiration for the movie was a thought experiment. For 20 years, I have struggled with — and written about — the following problem: How do I reconcile my modern daily challenges with my ancestors’ historical trauma?"

Though almost all the award nominations and wins went to either Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg for the film, Robbert Nassau, who edited A Real Pain, is nominated for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy, Theatrical) at the American Cinema Editors Awards. Let's see if he wins that.