Kathy Bates Held Onto The Guilt Of Not Thanking Her Mom In Her Oscar Acceptance Speech For More Than 30 Years, And Her Reaction To Realizing That She Actually Did Has Left People Emotional

It has been more than three decades since Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Annie Wilkes in Misery, but she recently revealed that she has been weighed down by something from that night ever since.

“When I won the Oscar for Misery, she said: ‘I don’t know what all the excitement is about; you didn’t discover the cure for cancer,’” Kathy recalled.

The star then added: “I forgot to thank her that night.”

And Kathy was visibly overcome with emotion as she watched the footage. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth in shock as she realized that she hadn’t forgotten her mom after all.

“Thank you,” she earnestly said to Ben, her voice audibly cracking. “Why did I think I didn’t thank her?! Oh, what a relief.”

“y’all i’m crying 😭😭😭” one person tweeted alongside the interview clip on Sunday. In less than 24 hours, this tweet has been seen more than two million times and racked up 10s of thousands of likes, retweets, and bookmarks. 

“Spent her whole life thinking she never thanked her mom and living in regret only to learn she did in fact thank her. Oh I am not strong enough for the emotions,” one user added in a quote tweet. 

“It made me so happy for her. What a moment of healing,” somebody else wrote.

Another tweeted: “She won this Oscar in 1991. Imagine carrying that burden of regret for 33 years. I hope she feels lighter now.”

The video also made its way over to Reddit, where users had a similar reaction — and also lauded Ben for the “gentle” way that he navigated the interview.