Lady Gaga and Glenn Close Tied for Best Actress at the 2019 Critics’ Choice Awards

Just a week into awards season, predictions of the race for best actress between Glenn Close and Lady Gaga have already been confirmed. One week after Close took home the award at the 2019 Golden Globes, where it had been widely expected to go to Gaga, in a turn of events that visibly surprised even Close herself, she returned to the stage to accept it once again on Sunday night, at the 2019 Critics’ Choice Awards—this time, however, with Gaga at her side.

They weren’t, in fact, the only pair to tie that night: Amy Adams and Patricia Arquette also shared the award for best actress in a limited series, for their roles in Sharp Objects and Escape at Dannemora, respectively. It wasn’t long, though, before Gaga and Close outshone them for their respective roles in A Star Is Born and The Wife, seeing as their tie also essentially served as confirmation that it’ll continue to be a tight race for the pair for the rest of this year’s awards season. (The Critics’ Choice Awards have long acted as a reliable indicator of how things will end up playing out at the Oscars, which will take place on February 24.)

“I’m so thrilled it’s a tie, I can’t tell you! The world kind of pits us against each other in this profession,” Close gushed onstage. “I think I can speak for all the women in this category: We celebrate each other. We’re proud to be in this room together.” Gaga then joined her, at which point the pair embraced. Gaga shared that her mom and Close are “good friends,” which the pair seemed to become themselves by the end of the evening, as they proceeded to gleefully, dramatically pose together backstage. (That is, after Gaga stopped the organizers from playing her off by saying, “It’s okay, I can still do this with a piano background.”)

While she’d already taken the stage earlier that night to accept the award for best song, for “Shallow,” also from A Star Is Born, Gaga was still flustered: She apparently “spilled water all over [her]self”; teared up and hugged Cooper, just like at the Globes; and tripped on her way to join Close. Unfortunately, though, there was another reason that Gaga was so emotional, as she shared on Twitter later that night, after once again expressing that her “heart [was] exploding with pride” to have tied with Close.

Things then took a darker turn; the tweet primarily served as a dedication to her dying horse, Arabella, who turned out to be the reason why Gaga had left the festivities early, as she was, in fact, “rushing” to Arabella “to say goodbye.” After reminiscing on “galloping through the canyons,” taking long hikes, and sharing cookies with Arabella, Gaga concluded with a lyric from her song “Joanne”: “Girl, where do you think you’re goin?”

Related: Watch Glenn Close’s Incredible Speech at the 2019 Golden Globes