--- title: Nicole Kidman Explains Her Weird Clapping at the Oscars description: The 'Lion' actress was lampooned for her odd clapping—but it turns out there's a perfectly understandable reason for her act of applause. canonical: https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-09T17:16:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:34.334Z og:title: Nicole Kidman Breaks Silence About Her Viral Oscars Clapping og:description: She had a perfectly normal reason for her unusual clapping. og:url: https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Nicole Kidman Breaks Silence About Her Viral Oscars Clapping twitter:description: She had a perfectly normal reason for her unusual clapping. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Nicole Kidman Explains Her Weird Clapping at the Oscars At Last > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Nicole Kidman Reveals She Was Once Engaged to Lenny Kravitz [Watch (HLS stream): Nicole Kidman Reveals She Was Once Engaged to Lenny Kravitz](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/17nF1nMj.m3u8) (0:52)  _Published 2017-02-16. HBO’s new miniseries Big Little Lies is full of intricate relationships, but off-screen there’s a special connection between two of the costars_  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Mar 9, 2017 5:16 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Mar 9, 2017 5:16 PM UTC Before the Oscars ended [with a surprise twist](http://time.com/4686598/warren-beatty-academy-president-cheryl-boone-issac/), the show gifted us a few funny memes. The biggest and best of these, perhaps, was _Lion_ actress [Nicole Kidman’s unusual clapping technique](http://time.com/4683389/oscars-2017-nicole-kidman-clap/?iid=sr-link1). Likened to the motions of a baby seal or the hand gestures of a Grinch or even Edward Scissorhands, Kidman’s open-palmed attempt at applause got viewers scratching their heads to understand why she couldn’t seem to clap like the rest of us. But in a new radio interview on KIIS FM, Kidman has luckily been able to clear all that up. As it turns out, it was [her jewelry](https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethdoerr/2017/02/27/nicole-kidman-lights-up-red-carpet-at-2017-oscars-with-vintage-omega-watch-and-harry-winston-jewels/#5091efdf10f1) that was at fault. She was wearing up to 119 carats worth of Harry Winston diamonds, [the _Evening Standard_ reports](http://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/nicole-kidman-explains-bizarre-oscars-clapping-a3485116.html), including a nearly-14-carat pearl-shaped diamond ring set—not exactly something she’d want to endanger with enthusiastic hand movements. “I don’t want to not be clapping,” she said about her thought process, fearing people taking it the wrong way. “So therefore I’m clapping, but it was really difficult because I had this huge ring on, which was not my own but was absolutely gorgeous and I was terrified of damaging it.” She added: “It’s like, is there not more important things to be focused on than the ‘seal clap’?” Good point, Nicole, good point. At least the internet had fun with it. > [](https://twitter.com/rachel/status/836053766382227456) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/"},"headline":"Nicole Kidman Explains Her Weird Clapping at the Oscars At Last","datePublished":"2017-03-09T17:16:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:34.334Z","description":"She had a perfectly normal reason for her unusual clapping.","url":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","awards","Oscars 2017"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/","name":"Nicole Kidman Explains Her Weird Clapping at the Oscars At Last"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Nicole Kidman Reveals She Was Once Engaged to Lenny Kravitz","description":"HBO’s new miniseries Big Little Lies is full of intricate relationships, but off-screen there’s a special connection between two of the costars","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/17nF1nMj/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-02-16T20:33:49.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/17nF1nMj.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/","duration":"PT52S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4696797/nicole-kidman-oscars-2017-clapping/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```