The ostentatious gift bag for Oscar nominees: Escapes to Italy and Canada, a piece of land in Australia and a $12,000 liposuction procedure
When you’re attending the Academy Awards, the biggest prize you can walk away with is, naturally, an Oscar. But if you’re up for a top acting or directing prize, you’re guaranteed a pretty good consolation prize: the goodie bag that the nominees are sent every year, regardless of whether they win or lose.
This year’s offerings are not, Forbes notes, the most expensive they’ve ever been; that distinction goes to the 2020 gift bag, which had a total value of $225,000. The 2023 gift bag (a catch-all term for the suitcases full of goods that are sent to these nominees’ homes) contains $126,000 worth of free trips, products and services that Distinctive Assets, the company behind these gift bags, thought this year’s A-listers would enjoy the most.
26 celebrities will receive gift bags this year, including Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Ke Huy Quan, Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett and Steven Spielberg. The biggest-ticket items? A $40,000 trip to the Lifestyle, a private Canadian estate, and a $9,000 trip to a restored lighthouse off the coast of Italy.
“[The nominees] can afford to go wherever they want,” Lash Fary, the founder of Distinctive Assets, told to Forbes. “It’s not about the fact that this is free. It’s about the fact that we’ve found a unique place that has built-in privacy for a celebrity.”
Other gifts with high price tags include free treatments of Dr. Thomas Su’s Art Lipo arm sculpting, Dr. Alan Bauman’s hair restoration services or a facelift from Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich—as well as a small plot of land in Australia. Smaller items consist of Ginza Nishikawa milk bread, organic dates, edible massage oil and a pack of Clif Thins.
Per The Guardian, brands pay $4,000 for their goods to be included in these gift bags, hoping to earn loyal celebrity clients and visibility for their companies in exchange. With all five of this year’s Best Actor nominees being first-time Oscar-nominated actors (Colin Farrell, Austin Butler, Paul Mescal, Brendan Fraser and Bill Nighy), the male acting category will be uniquely filled with stars who are grateful for even a chance at the win—and for the $126,000 worth of free stuff they’ll get no matter what.
