Nurul Azliah on the red carpet outside the Dolby Theatre, before heading up to the press interview room at Loews Hotel.

There’s a formal attire policy that everybody needs to adhere to at the Oscars, and I made the mistake of not paying attention to this as much as I should have. However, the series of events that unfolded after I was kicked out over my outfit was beyond my imagination.

This is not a story about how messy things can get behind the scenes at the Oscars. It’s about how I came out of it a new person. And it’s all thanks to Danai Maraire, who some in Hollywood may know as a producer from Black Entertainment Television (BET).

To me, she was my guardian angel and fairy godmother.

I arrived at the security checkpoint outside Hollywood and Highland Centre feeling fabulous and optimistic in my knee-length shimmery dress, killer heels and formal blazer, ready to cover the Oscars.

I went to the red carpet outside Dolby Theatre to take shots for my coverage and then up to the press room at Loews Hotel.

While waiting for the second security checks, a staff member scanned my outfit and didn’t seem to have a problem with what I was wearing then. But things took a crazy turn after I entered the press room.

I was setting up my workstation when a random stranger came up to me from behind to comment on my outfit.

“I like your dress, I think it looks cute on you,” she said, bending down to my ear and walking away too quickly to let me catch a glimpse of her face.

That sounded like a nice thing to say, but what happened later on made me question whether that remark was a praise or a heads-up.

The press room was slowly filling up when three staff asked me to stand up so they could look at my dress, before telling me to leave the property. My face flushed from the public humiliation.

“We need to enforce our formal attire policy. Your dress is not long enough because it needs to be floor-length or fall after the knee. So we’ll need to ask you to leave,” said one of them, who appeared to be the director of communications for the Academy Awards.

I’d had a long flight to Los Angeles and I was nursing jet lag. I had already paid US$350 for the AT&T Internet setup and I was wracking my brain trying to get my laptop connected. Up to that point, I was pretty confident that fate wasn’t going to give me any further trouble. But it did.

“I flew 16 hours for this event. I arrived last night from Singapore and I’m scheduled to leave the country tomorrow afternoon. I’m not going to be on the red carpet, and nobody’s going to see me from all the way back here in this room, and this is my first and last time covering the Oscars,” I said, my voice starting to quiver. “Isn’t there any way that you can make an exception for this?”

“We’ve already asked four people to leave because of their outfits and if we make an exception for you, we’re going to have to make more exceptions for other people,” she replied in a brutally straight-forward tone.

I was devastated. I didn’t see anybody else being ganged up on and asked to leave besides me, and I was one of the earliest there. The press room was still rather empty when I arrived, three hours before the awards show was scheduled to start at 5pm (PCT).

But there was no way out for this deer caught in headlights, who gave in to the order without putting up a fight.

I packed my things and left my table as they stood there staring at this noob of an Asian reporter throwing the Oscars opportunity out the window.

That was when Danai appeared out of nowhere.

The adventure begins

In all the five years of working in this line, I’ve never met someone who would help another reporter out, let alone go to great lengths to do so.

There I was, already surrendering to my fate, and this lady, whom I’ve never seen in my entire life, wasn’t going to back down from this obstacle.

I still had my press pass with me so I could go back if I had a new dress. But with about two hours to showtime, how was that even possible?

Well, it was, for Danai at least.

“As soon as I heard that they had asked you to leave, and I saw your face falling, I just had to help,” she said. “Man, we got to get this girl a dress!”

Her offer made my heart sink, especially when she had her own problems to deal with, too.

According to Danai, she was not given a spot on the table in the press room because she hadn’t purchased the AT&T Internet setup, even after successfully applying for accreditation.

Story continues