Frances McDormand Erroneously Bleeped During Golden Globes Speech

Tonight, while accepting the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, Frances McDormand was bleeped several times at inopportune and even the wrong moments. Letting the word “shite” loose without being censored by NBC, the Three Billboards actress subsequently was bleeped several times by trigger-happy network censors over words that wouldn’t require it.

“Everybody brought their best game to this one — their very best game. For instance, I cannot throw a baseball for shite…” the actress said, before much of the rest of her anecdote from the set was cut off. Among words bleeped during McDormand’s thank-yous, before and after this one instance of profanity, were “Fox Searchlight” — the studio that released writer-director Martin McDonagh’s dark comedic drama, and “allowed our film to find its audience” — and “shift,” with McDormand discussing the “tectonic shift” transpiring in the entertainment industry this year, with relation to revelations of sexual assault and harassment.

Winning her second Golden Globe — her first being a Special Award shared with the cast of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts in 1994 — McDormand’s Three Billboards character is ferocious mother Mildred Hayes, showing her local police the full force of her personality following the unpunished murder of her daughter in her small Middle American town. As far as characters in the most celebrated films of the year, there is perhaps no more appropriate stand-in for the #MeToo moment than Mildred herself.

Another of tonight’s honorees, Master of None star Aziz Ansari, also saw his share of bleeps during his speech.