“Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters took home the prize for best original song at Sunday’s (March 15) 2026 Oscars following a triumphant performance from the singing voices of HUNTR/X, but EJAE and company’s heartfelt speech ended up being cut short when one of her collaborators was prematurely played off.
By winning best original song at the 98th Oscars, “Golden” set several records, becoming the first K-pop song to win an Oscar; the first song with more than four writers to win an Oscar; and the first best song winner where all of the writers won’t receive an individual trophy.
“Golden” has seven credited writers – EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu-Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park. Previously, no song with more than four writers had won in this category.
EJAE — who is also one of three singing voices of the film’s central girl group HUNTR/X, alongside AUDREY NUNA and REI AMI — spoke first for the group of songwriters on Sunday night, emphasizing the song’s message of “resilience.”
“Thank you so much to the Academy for this insane award,” EJAE began. “Growing up, people made fun of me for liking K-pop, but now everyone’s singing our song and all the Korean lyrics. I’m so proud. And I realized, the song, this award is not about success; it’s about resilience. And I’m just so grateful to our team, and just want to thank my mom, my dad, my brother, my fiance, my manager, of course, for always staying with me. And I also want to thank, of course, the resilient cast of KPop Demon Hunters. Thank you so much to [directors] Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans and our producer, Michelle Wang. Thank you so much for the film. Thank you to Netflix. Thank you Sony Animation.”
EJAE wrapped her speech by naming many of the collaborators onstage behind her, but when one of her co-writers — Yu-Han Lee, also known as Yuhan — jumped in to add his thank-you’s, the music loudly kicked in and drowned out what he was saying, as the Oscars abruptly went to commercial break.
The Motion Picture Academy has a strict rule that it will award no more than four statuettes in this category. If a song has five or more co-writers, as is the case with “Golden,” the writers must sign an agreement that, should they win, they will share one statuette. They will all forever be known as Oscar winners; they just won’t each have a shiny trophy to show for it.
Here’s the rule, verbatim, from the rulebook for the 98th Oscars. “No more than two statuettes will normally be given in the Original Song category. A third statuette may be awarded when there are three essentially equal writers of a song. The Music Branch Executive Committee has the right, in what it alone determines to be a very rare and extraordinary circumstance, to award a fourth statuette. In cases where five or more credited songwriters function as collaborators, a single statuette may be awarded to the group. Each songwriter must agree to the single “group statuette” option by signing and returning a Group Award form prior to the submission deadline. Final determination of the awardable songwriters in the group will be made by the Music Branch Executive Committee.”
“Golden” had already made K-pop awards show history. On Feb. 1, it became the first K-pop song to win a Grammy when it won best song written for visual media. “Golden” also won best original song at the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes.
This year’s other Oscar nominees for best original song were: “Dear Me” from Diane Warren: Relentless; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren; “I Lied to You” from Sinners; Music and Lyric by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Goransson; “Sweet Dreams of Joy” from Viva Verdi!; Music and Lyric by Nicholas Pike and “Train Dreams” from Train Dreams; Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; Lyric by Nick Cave.
In addition to original song, KPop Demon Hunters also won the Oscar for best animated feature film on Sunday.
Here are two other Oscar records “Golden” set:
Longest-running No. 1 hit to win an Oscar for best original song in more than 20 years
“Golden” is only the third song that spent eight or more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 to win an Oscar. The first two were “You Light Up My Life” from the film of the same name (Debby Boone’s cover version spent 10 weeks on top in 1977) and “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile (Eminem’s original version spent 12 weeks on top in 2002-03).
Moreover, “Golden” is the first song that had already hit No. 1 to win an Oscar since “Lose Yourself.” Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow” had climbed as high as No. 5 before the Oscar telecast in 2019. It zoomed to No. 1 (for one week) after it won and after the two stars memorably performed the song on the show.
Six of the seven writers are the first South Koreans to win in this category
EJAE, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park were all born in South Korea. (The other co-writer, Mark Sonnenblick, was born in the U.S.) Karen O, who was born in South Korea, was nominated 12 years ago for co-writing “The Moon Song” from Her, but the award went to “Let It Go” from Frozen.
