Celebrities Ate Pizza In A Bag At The Critics Choice Awards

When you envision the meal on offer at a Hollywood awards ceremony, you're probably imagining opulent items topped with caviar and gold leaf. For those seated in the audience at this weekend's Critics' Choice Awards, however, the food left some attendees puzzled—to the point where one of the celebrities even mentioned it in their acceptance speech.

TMZ reports that one of the food items served at the ceremony was, of all things, a slice of pizza. Sure, pizza can run the gamut from humble to fancy, but it was the presentation that had a lot of people baffled. That's because the pizza was served up in a paper bag.

There's a TikTok video documenting the arrival of the pizza at one of the tables. Some celebrities seated at the table appeared to be fine with it, digging right in, such as Taraji P. Henson. But singer and actress Fantasia says audibly in the video, "Where are the lamb chops?" with an exaggerated frown, followed by a laugh.

The camera then pans over to Oprah Winfrey, who declines to eat the slice of vaguely Neapolitan-ish pie and points to her face. "I'm not messing up my lips," she says, referring to her pristine makeup.

But some celebrities had some fun with it. During his award acceptance for Best Actor for his performance in the movie Holdovers, Paul Giamatti asked the crowd, "Did everybody get their pizza in a bag, by the way?"

"I think that would be a good endorsement," he says as the audience laughs. "Paul Giamatti for pizza in a bag!"

The pizza-in-a-bag I'm most familiar with is served as a whole pie rather than single slices, and it seems fairly unique to the Chicago area. Some old mom-and-pop pizza restaurants here serve their thin-crust takeout pizza on a cardboard round sealed up in a loose paper bag, often with a free two-liter bottle of RC Cola on the side.

The practice of bagging pizza seems as if it's dwindling somewhat in recent years, but the benefit of this unconventional packaging is that it lets out enough steam that the pizza itself doesn't suffer too much on its transit home. (Although you can use this trick to crisp up your pie when it arrives.)

I'm not particularly convinced celebrities would want Chicago-style thin-crust pizza at their award ceremonies, however. It's pretty humble. Then again, the official food vendors at the Critics' Choice Awards this year were Baja Fresh and Cold Stone Creamery, and neither of those counter-service chains is anything too gourmet (neither serves pizza, either). I'm guessing we won't see another appearance of pizza in a bag this awards season. But if Giamatti really does become its spokesperson, demand for the pizza will surely spike.