Post by Vin Diesel.
Yesterday, at the MTV Movie Awards, the ceremony came and went without the winners being announced in four of the categories including WTF Moment and On-Screen Duo. The hush-hush way the show went about it caused a minor scandal in some corners of the Internet, but a day later, some of the reasons for the crickets are starting to become clear. The show prioritized the categories in which the winners were actually in attendance, which makes sense on paper but sadly, led to what should have been the most touching moment of the entire broadcast getting cut: the above acceptance speech from Vin Diesel.
Calling his fallen co-star his "brother", Diesel accepted the award for "Best On-Screen Duo" and offered up a minute long speech that was both complimentary to fans and extremely touching. The two had a very close bond that extended well past their shared franchise, and that really comes through in Vin Diesel’s words. There’s no putting on a smile. He genuinely loved the guy and will miss him, at least in some ways, for the rest of his life.
Vin Diesel hasn’t spoken publicly about MTV choosing to leave his speech out of the broadcast, but sources close to him allegedly told Yahoo he was disappointed, which seems only natural. He was a part of the longer video presentation/ honor the show did air with help from Jordana Brewster, but even so, I’m sure he thinks Walker deserved one more moment in the sun.
At their core, the MTV Movie Awards are about the crowd-pleasers. They’re about the popcorn movies that younger people attend alongside their friends to have a damn good time. The Oscars exist to honor a different type of movie. They exist to honor ones that are maybe a little deeper and more thought-provoking, but that doesn’t mean they’re any more or less important. The world needs reasons to smile, and Paul Walker and Vin Diesel were able to offer up a tremendous number of those through this franchise.
So, join me in raising a drink and toasting Diesel and the spirit of Paul Walker. They really were a phenomenal on-screen duo, and contrary to what MTV executives may have thought, this speech really deserved to see the light of day, which it did this morning thanks to the actor’s Facebook.
