Jacob Elordi made good on a promise he made as a teenager on Sunday night, bringing his mum Melissa as his date to the 2026 Academy Awards, just as he told her he would when he was 15 years old.
The Euphoria star, 28, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Creature in Frankenstein, stepped onto the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre in a classic Bottega Veneta suit, with Melissa arriving alongside him in a striking black gown adorned with red and blue sequined flowers.
Elordi had spoken about the promise on Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in January, explaining the story behind it.
“I’m going to take mom,” he said.
“I promised her when I was 15 that I would take her. So, I have to honour that.”
He also recalled how his dad had been rather more cautious about whether the plan would ever actually happen.
“My mom, she fully believed in me the whole time. I remember dad did the dad thing at one point where he was like, ‘You’ve got to have a plan B because this isn’t necessarily feasible.’ And I think I said something like, ‘My plan B is the Oscars.'”
As it turned out, no plan B was required.
Although Sean Penn took home the Best Supporting Actor award on the night, Frankenstein was far from empty-handed, picking up wins for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup & Hairstyling and Best Production Design.
For Elordi, though, the night may well be remembered less for what happened on stage and more for the moment he walked the red carpet with the woman who believed in him all along.
