Everything is a lie: Messi wasn’t at the Oscars, used fake arms to clap

Breaking - nay, heartbreaking news: as we speculated about last night (March 10) during the Oscars ceremony, it seems that Messi, the dog star of Anatomy of a Fall, was not actually at the Oscars. And in fact – brace yourself here – Messi used fake arms to clap during a bit. You could say that things got a little... Messi... At the Oscars.

The full truth came out thanks to the Instagram story of Messi’s trainer, Laura Martin Contini, who posted multiple pictures from throughout the evening. Here’s how it seems things actually went down:

• Messi pre-filmed his appearances at the Oscars, in the audience with other folks who may or may not have been present at the actual ceremony.
• That includes the initial cut to Messi when host Jimmy Kimmel joked that Messi should team up with Robert Downey Jr. for a Shaggy Dog remake, as well as the clapping bit later on in the show.
• In less of a shocker, the bit at the very end of the ceremony where Messi seems to be about to pee on Matt Damon’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star was also filmed earlier, as revealed in Instagram stories by My Pet Agency, the folks who work with Messi professionally. Messfessionally, if you will.

But wait, you may say… You saw Ryan Gosling looking over at Messi clapping in the audience. That was, it seems a creative bit of editing where they played the shot of Messi clapping on the screen in the Dolby Theater. So Gosling was indeed delighted to see Messi clapping, but it was on screen – not in the auditorium.

As for the clapping bit itself, that’s the most hilarious part: there was a man underneath Messi’s chair during the pre-taping session, holding long, fake (we hope) dog arms to make it look like Messi was clapping. Next to Messi, you can spy Contini dressed to the nines. And as a bonus – no joke – it looks like Contini got to take home the dog arms.

You can see her holding them in her current profile picture on Instagram, and laughing. And this morning she posted a video to her Insta story labeled “Good morning America” with the fake dog arms reaching out to grab some delicious-looking pancakes with blueberries on them.

So there you go! Movie magic, folks. It may have looked like Messi attended the Oscars – and in a way he did. But not in the “sitting in the audience and watching the Oscars” way. Sorry.