EJAE Says An Unsmiling Leonardo DiCaprio Made Her Super ‘Nervous’ During ‘Golden’ Performance at 2026 BAFTAs

There is nothing more nerve-wracking for an artist than looking out into an audience and getting blank stares. Now imagine that happening at a major British awards show and the person giving you nothing just happens to be one of the biggest movies stars on the planet.

That’s the situation K-pop singer EJAE described in a new interview with The Times in the U.K., in which she described being haunted by an ill-timed voice crack while performing the KPop Demon Hunters Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “Golden” at this year’s BAFTA awards in front of the One Battle After Another legend.

“The BAFTAs haunt me,” EJAE told the paper. “I made mistakes. I cracked a little bit on the high notes. Leonardo DiCaprio was [in the audience] right in front of me and he was not smiling.” 

The co-writer of the hit she voices as Rumi, part of the fictional K-pop group HUNTR/X in the Netflix animated film, said just before singing the lyric “born to be” and gearing up to hit one of the high notes in the song she locked eyes with DiCaprio and was immediately thrown off. “That’s what put me off,” she explained. “He made me so nervous. It was already so nerve-wracking to be in front of all these celebrities, and then I look up and lock eyes with Leonardo DiCaprio? Come on.”

She needn’t have worried about DiCaprio’s blank stare, as “Golden” won the Oscar for best original song and EJAE, along with her HUNTR/X bandmates Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna, blew up to global fame thanks to the song that also landed them hardware at this year’s Grammys and Golden Globes.

EJAE also discussed one of the pleasant perks of her new stardom in the interview, noting that Beyoncé and Jay-Z introduced themselves at an afterparty, which blew her mind. “I was at their afterparty and Jay-Z came up to me and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Shawn,’” she recalled. “I was beyond starstruck. Beyoncé is my idol and she said, ‘You have an incredible voice.’” When EJAE asked if she was familiar with the inescapable hit, Bey casually answered, “‘Yeah, my girls sing it.’”