Leonardo DiCaprio forced to return Oscar, but not the one you’re thinking of
The Revenant star Leonardo DiCaprio is being forced to surrender his Oscar. But there’s a twist in the tale.
Leonardo DiCaprio will have to surrender an Oscar in his possession - not the one he won for The Revenant, but an Academy Award that he owns. This particular Oscar belonged to Marlon Brando, and is now ensnared in an ongoing investigation surrounding its previous owner.
According to the New York Times, DiCaprio received the Oscar - won by Brando for 1954’s On the Waterfront - from Malaysian financier Jho Low. Low is being investigated for alleged fraud, and DiCaprio has surrendered gifts he had received from him - including Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat artworks - to the authorities.
The Oscar went missing from Brando’s home and was bought for $600,000 ( ₹4.3 crore) by Low years later. According to the report, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has the right to buy back the Oscar once the investigations are completed - for $1.
DiCaprio won his first Oscar in 2016, for his lead performance in the survival drama, The Revenant. It was a culmination of many years of receiving nominations, but never crossing that final hurdle.
Brando, meanwhile, never gave much importance to the Oscars. He famously refused to accept the Academy Award for his performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, choosing to send a Native American woman to the ceremony in his stead.
DiCaprio will next be seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, following which he has signed on to reunite with director Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon.
