Game Awards Stage Crasher Arrested After Confusing Bill Clinton Speech

A person who crashed the stage at The Game Awards on Thursday night has been arrested after delivering a confusing speech about Bill Clinton, according to the host of the livestreamed show.

As the ceremony drew to a close, FromSoftware's action hit Elden Ring was named the Game of the Year, beating the likes of God Of War Ragnarök, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

But as Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team took to the stage at Los Angeles' Microsoft Theater to collect the coveted trophy, they were joined by a young man who appeared to have been sitting in a different area of the venue.

With the help of a translator, Miyazaki thanked fans, while the apparent stage crasher stood to the side of the victorious group. In the livestreamed footage, the person was shown looking around before making his way to the back of the stage.

After Miyazaki's speech concluded to raucous applause from the audience, the interloper took the microphone and said: "I want to thank everybody and say that I think I want to nominate this award to my reformed orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton."

The outburst saw the award-winning team look at one another in confusion, while the security team closed in on the from both sides of the stage.

As scattered applause rang out among the seemingly confused audience, the crasher was escorted off the stage.

Moments after the broadcast, a number of viewers took to Twitter to express their confusion and share a series of memes regarding the moment.

Amid the discussion, Canadian video game journalist Geoff Keighley, who hosted the event, stated that the person in question had been arrested.

"The individual who interrupted our Game of the Year moment has been arrested," he wrote in a tweet that received more than 200,000 likes in a matter of hours.

Twitter users shared a series of posts claiming that the person who had crashed the stage was somebody who has a history of trolling others in the past.

A clip of the Game Awards moment shared on Twitter has been viewed more than 1.6 million times. Twitter users also shared a series of memes.

One Twitter user shared a photo of former President Clinton looking to the side, alongside the caption: "Bill Clinton when he heard he was nominated for Game of the Year, by that random kid on the stage during the game awards acceptance speech for Elden Ring..."

Another shared an image of Elden Ring and God Of War Ragnarök battling it out with one another, before running in the opposite direction when coming up against a bat-wielding fox representation of Clinton.

Another shared a screenshot of a member of the live orchestra at the show appearing to exert much effort into entertaining the audience.

"Do NOT let flute player guy be overshadowed by the Bill Clinton kid!" said the Twitter user.

In his speech at The Game Awards, Miyazaki said that there were "even more interesting" release to come from the team.

"We have faced so many difficulties while developing this game, so as a director I'm really relieved," he said, via a translator. "And this might not be the right thing to say ... but I have made up my mind to create even more interesting games than this one."

Miyazaki added that "as for Elder Ring, I still have several more things we want to do, so getting the award really encourages us."

Elden Ring also scooped awards in the categories Best Game Direction, Best Art Direction, and Best Role-Playing Game. God Of War won six awards overall.

Newsweek has reached out to organizers of The Game Awards for comment.