Teen Choice Awards 2014: The Fault in Our Stars actors win big
Nominees spark Twitter backlash accusing producers of rigging the vote count
Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort of The Fault in Our Stars rode a victorious wave at the Teen Choice Awards.
The actors were honoured with several prizes at Sunday's fan-favourite extravaganza, including choice drama movie actor and breakout movie star for Elgort and choice drama and action movie actress for Divergent star Woodley. The pair was also awarded the surfboard-shaped trophy for choice movie lip-lock for their Fault in Our Stars smooch.
"I don't surf or anything, so I guess I'm gonna put this on my wall," said Elgort of the unique prize.
Demi Lovato kicked off the Teen Choice Awards with a performance and a win. After belting out her tune Really Don't Care, the singer-actress surfed away with awards for choice summer song and choice female summer music star. Lovato used her acceptance speech to pump up the crowd of mostly roaring teenagers.
"I want you guys to know that instead of just getting up here and saying a speech, every single one of you deserves to have a happy and incredible life, so be the best you can be in everything because your dreams can come true if you work hard for them," beamed Lovato.
165 million votes cast
Teen Choice Awards co-hosts Tyler Posey of Teen Wolf and Sarah Hyland of Modern Family said 165 million votes were cast online for the 16th annual awards, which honour movies, television, music, comedy, sports, fashion and Web stars in such silly categories as choice hottie, smile and villain, which went to The Hunger Games heavy Donald Sutherland.
"You named me the most villainous?" asked Sutherland, who showed up to the casual ceremony in a tuxedo. "My wife — I have been married for 42 years — my wife asked me to tell you that she agreed with you."
Other winners on hand to claim their trophies included Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale as choice drama TV show actress, The Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson as choice sci-fi/fantasy movie actor and Bethany Mota and Tyler Oakley as choice female and male Web stars.
"You're all amazing," said Mota, echoing the motivational acceptance speeches from this year's batch of winners. "You all have the potential to be what you wanna be."
Venue moved last minute
A recent water main break flooded the Teen Choice Awards' original venue at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. The show was hastily moved across town to the Shrine Auditorium adjacent to the University of Southern California campus.
Zendaya, Ariana Grande and Kevin Hart were among the other stars who showed up to accept awards at the boisterous ceremony, which featured performances from the groups Magic and Rixton.
"I wish there was a TelePrompTer for these (acceptance) speeches," said The Giver actress Odeya Rush, who won the breakout star award.
Jason Derulo closed out the show with a performance of his song Talk Dirty, which featured the choice male summer music star winner dancing on top of a police car on stage.
#TeensDontHaveAChoiceAward
Buzz over the show continued long after the credits rolled, sparked in part by the outrage of an overlooked nominee.
Vine personality Cameron Dallas triggered a groundswell of teenage rage when – after losing in the choice web star category – he accused the show’s producers of rigging the vote count, tweeting:
“It’s funny how they [Fox producers] told me I won the viner award 6 days before the voting ended and made the runners up still vote to tweet for them.”
Fellow Web Star nominee, YouTube personality Matt Espinosa, also tweeted his displeasure writing: “Basically they picked the people almost 6 days before voting was done and used all of us for promotion."
Both personalities have since deleted their comments but the hashtag #TeensDontHaveAChoiceAward is trending globally.
Fox has yet to comment, but voting policy is addressed in a disclaimer from the Teenasaurus Rox production company on the Teen Choice Awards website.
It reads: "Winners for the Teen Choice Awards are determined using the votes cast on the Site. Votes are tabulated electronically and winners are determined based on the nominees in each category with the highest number of eligible votes. Teenasaurus Rox reserves the right to choose the winner from the top four vote generators."
Practically speaking, voting closes at 11:59 p.m. the night before the show. That doesn't leave much time for producers to confirm which stars will be there to collect their surfboards.