Well, an orator she isn’t.
Actress Kim Delaney—who currently stars on Lifetime’s Army Wives—was a guest speaker at an awards ceremony honoring former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. She was hurried from the stage after her prepared speech became incoherent (and, according to some reports, “inappropriate“).
By most accounts, Delaney just seemed, er, wasted: she was “fidgety,” “slurry,” and “rambling,” and she clearly struggled as she explained that she had “served in active military duty family for five years,” had “seen soldiers come home with painful, life-altering injuries borne of their time and service,” and had “attended numerous military funerals, including that of my best friend’s son.”
But not really—that’s her character on Army Wives she was talking about. “It’s make believe,” she continued. “I have the luxury of doing all this on a television show.”
I think I get where she was going with her speech—film, television, and video games make light, sometimes fantastical or soapy entertainment of the horror and sorrow of war and sacrifice—except that, in Delaney’s case, this point kind of got lost in the shuffle.
And before Delaney realized what was happening, she was being escorted stage right. (There’s another video of the interruption itself. All the producer was missing was a giant cane.)
But the Philadelphia news media has a very different take on Delaney’s oratorical misadventure:
Following a series of apparent backstage production problems at the Liberty Medal award presentation at the National Constitution Center on Thursday evening, actress and Philadelphia native Kim Delaney seemed to make a valiant attempt to rescue the production by going on stage without introduction or teleprompter, but then delivering a stumbling speech.
Yeah, I’d lose my marbles if someone asked me to “wing it” in front of Robert Gates, too. No one had a pack of index cards?
It was really hard to watch, and she was yanked off stage pretty much.
I was astonished at how bad she looked and why they would let her on stage. What she did that was inappropriate was grin and/or laugh. In the context that was inappropriate.
I do think ordering her off stage was pretty harsh and it could’ve been handled better.
I would’ve been mortified, then again, I’ve done enough public speaking to know I’d go NO WHERE NEAR anything that would mess me up beforehand.
Uh, it’s pretty obvious that she’s wasted out of her mind. Take a look at her appearance (ratty hair, eyes darting in different directions, slurred speech). I doubt it was stage fright.
How did she get onstage in the first place? She acts like she’s a graduate of the Sean Young School for the Drunk and Brain-damaged!