Neil Patrick Harris got roasted on Twitter for saying “it takes a lot of balls to wear a dress like that” right after filmmaker Dana Perry stirringly mentioned her son’s suicide during her Oscar acceptance speech. Harris, who as host had a very difficult job to do, probably didn’t hear Perry’s comment before he made the seemingly insensitive remark. (See dress below!)
But Perry, who’s obviously been through a lot, isn’t the type to be offended. First of all, she looked smashing in that dress–which was kind of, well, ballsy. And second, she’d just won an Oscar for telling a story she’s incredibly passionate about. “We should talk about suicide out loud,” Perry said, just before NPH’s comment. And she has: both in 2009’s Boy Interrupted, which Perry directed and in Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject. No snark about a dress is going to bother someone like Dana Perry. Backstage, reporter Brian A. Hernandez confirms Perry “laughed out loud.”
Backstage, someone told Dana Perry, who mentioned her son’s suicide, about NPH’s dress joke. She laughed aloud. Not offended. #Oscars
— Brian A. Hernandez (@BAHjournalist) February 23, 2015
“Takes a lot of balls to wear that dress.” Damn it @ActuallyNPH you went where I couldn’t and fast!