12 Wild Oscar Conspiracy Theories People Actually Believe

Up until very recently, the ‘no Oscar for Leo’ phenomenon was the stuff of Hollywood canon. After first losing out on the award for Best Supporting Actor to Tommy Lee Jones back in 1994, DiCaprio amassed a further four Oscar nominations including Best Actor nods for The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Unluckily for him, in a Hollywood version of ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’, poor Leo was snubbed every time and his misfortune turned into fodder for many an internet meme. Imagine the torture of having to practice your humble loser face not once, not twice but five times.

A few theories have been put forth as to why Leo would be cursed with such bad luck. DiCaprio devotees – leggy models, Martin Scorsese and grown-up late ‘90s tweens who spent all their pocket money seeing Titanic eighty-seven times included – believe that his films and acting skills are just so !*$% good that they’re actually a cut above plebeian popularity contests like the Oscars.

The more cynical suggest that the roles he goes for are a tad too Oscar bait-worthy. In Leo’s defence, that kind of makes sense. After having that little golden statuette dangled in front of him like the proverbial carrot on a stick for so long, it stands to reason that he’d try to give the fickle Academy voters what they want.

Others think the continuous snubbing was part of a nigh on twenty-year-long revenge plot waged by the Academy against Leo for him daring to skip the 1998 ceremony that saw his breakout movie Titanic win a total of eleven awards.

Of course this theory eventually came crashing to the ground when he finally won Best Actor for his role in The Revenant last year, proving that all he really needed to do to secure an Oscar was wrestle a bear and eat raw bison liver.