Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems has a word for the critics of her fabulous but oversized Oscar dress:
“Oops.”
That’s what the Oscar nominee says tweeted On Monday afternoon after memes and a video of a woman trying to look around her cloud-like white dress covering her view in the Oscars audience went viral. She gracefully included a blushing emoji and four detailed photos of her striking outfit.
Tems, whose full name is Temilade Openiyi, was nominated for a song Oscar for co-writing “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The 27-year-old co-wrote the song with Rihanna, director Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson. Rihanna performed “Lift Me Up” during the Academy Awards telecast, but “Naatu Naatu” from the movie “RRR” took home the trophy.
Easily seen in television aerial shots as a large white dot among a fairly uniform seated Oscars audience, the dress elicited a variety of sartorial accolades, happy memes and accusations of disrespect among online commentators.
One of them summed up the situation, tweeting, “The Tems dress was beautiful. Tems is absolutely beautiful. Tems is my star girl and all that. Items blocking the view of people wearing her dress was inconsiderate. People pointing that out are not racism, as long as they don’t use derogatory language. Humans need to be more honest.”
Tems’ statuesque gown was from Lever Couture and had a similar vibe to the royal blue Gaurav Gupta creation Cardi B wore to the 2023 Grammys. But as Cardi transformed into a file Paco Rabanne chainmail gown to honor the recently deceased designer when she presented a Grammy in February, Tems slid into a strapless black gown with an ultra-high leg slit for Vanity Fair’s Oscars afterparty—and nothing for over her shoulders that she could block out other guests’ views on Hollywood royalty while they were discussing In-N-Out.
Tems changed from a massive white gown to a sleek black one before attending Sunday’s 2023 Vanity Fair Oscars party in Beverly Hills.
(Cindy Ord/VF23/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this article.
