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The family of the late Chadwick Boseman has spoken out after the actor was snubbed at the Oscars.
This year's Academy Awards ended on an anticlimactic note as viewers had expected a posthumous Best Actor win for the Black Panther star who passed away last year at the age of 43.
Instead, Anthony Hopkins won the accolade for his role in The Father, but Boseman's brother has said the late actor wasn't that concerned about winning an Oscar anyway.
Boseman was widely expected to win Best Actor for his role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom but his family is now defending Hopkins' unexpected win.
Speaking to TMZ, Derrick Boseman said his brother would have been happy to congratulate Hopkins following his Sunday night win and that he "doesn't view Chadwick not winning an Oscar for Best Actor as a snub because every nominated actor was excellent and deserving of the award."
The pastor said that his younger brother considered winning an Oscar an achievement, but it was not an "obsession" for him.
Derrick Boseman also explained that his brother "always described them [the Oscars] to me as a campaign."
The running order of the awards was changed on Sunday night's ceremony with Best Actor saved until the very end—the spot usually reserved for Best Picture.
This led many to suspect that the Academy had planned to end the show with a tribute to Boseman, who died from cancer last year.
However, an absent Hopkins was announced as the winner and the ceremony came to an abrupt end, drawing comparisons to the La La Land/Moonlight fiasco of 2017.
On Monday morning, an 83-year-old Hopkins apparently woke up to find out he had won Best Actor and recorded a message and paid tribute to Boseman from his home in Wales.
"I'm very grateful to the Academy and thank you. And I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early," he said. "I really did not expect this. So I feel very privileged and honored. Thank you."
This was Hopkins' second win and fourth nomination in the Best Actor category.
He previously won the award in 1992 for his role in The Silence of the Lambs. He was also nominated for his roles in The Remains of the Day 1994 and Nixon in 1996.
His agent confirmed that the actor was at home sleeping when his win was announced.
"Tony was in Wales, where he grew up, and he was asleep at four in the morning when I woke him up to tell him the news," Jeremy Barber told People magazine.
