Emilia Pérez Songwriters Sing Until They're Played Off the Stage as They Win at Oscars 2025

The Oscar for Best Original Song has gone to "El Mal" from Emilia Pérez!

At the 97th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2, songwriters Clément Ducol and Camille took the stage at the Dolby Theatre to accept the iconic gold statuette. They began their speech by highlighting the song's importance. 

"We are so grateful, thank you to all The Academy members. Congrats to our beautiful fellow nominees. We wrote 'El Mal' as a song to denounce corruption and we hope it speaks through to the role music and art can play and continue to play as a force of the good and progress in the world," said Camille.

"Thank you, thank you, and to the amazing cast. Thank you to our phenomenal interpreters, Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón, for bringing this song to life," Ducol then said. "Thank you to everyone involved in producing the music. Thank you to Netflix."

After continuing to give thanks to all that got them their big win, the "El Mal" songwriters closed their speech by performing an impromptu song — which resulted in them getting played off the stage in the process.

Composer Clément Ducol and singer-songwriter Camille teamed up to write the songs in Emilia Pérez, French writer-director Jacques Audiard’s musical thriller set in Mexico which led the 2025 Oscar nominations. Its tunes are sung largely in Spanish despite the fact that both composers are also French. 

The duo co-wrote Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award winner “El Mal,” a song about corrupt members of society featuring Saldaña and Gascón, with Audiard. Meanwhile, the romantic and defiant “Mi Camino," sung in the film by stars Selena Gomez and Édgar Ramírez, also earned an Oscar nod.

This year’s Conan O’Brien-hosted Oscar ceremony broke with tradition by skipping full production numbers of each of the best original song nominees. Instead, the show included a presentation that focused on personal reflections from the teams behind each nominated tune.

However, Queen Latifah and Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were among those who sang live. 

Also competing in the best original song category were Elton John’s "Never Too Late" from the documentary of the same name; Sing Sing’s “Like a Bird” from Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada; and The Six Triple Eight’s “The Journey” from Diane Warren.

For a documentary about his life, John, 77, cowrote new tune “Never Too Late” with Brandi Carlile, Bernie Taupin and Andrew Watt. The English superstar is no stranger to the Academy, earning two previous best original song Oscars for The Lion King’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and Rocketman’s "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again.”

“Like a Bird,” from songwriters Alexander and Quesada, serves as a moving capper to Sing Sing, director and co-writer Greg Kwedar’s retelling of a real-life arts rehabilitation program in the titular New York maximum security prison. The movie starring Colman Domingo features formerly incarcerated alumni of that program playing versions of themselves. 

Warren, 68, continues an impressive (but unusual) streak with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Nominated a whopping 16 times for original songs in various movies since 1987, the songwriter went into the 2025 ceremony with zero competitive wins. However, she did receive an honorary Oscar in 2022. The inspiring “The Journey” plays over the credits of Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight, which stars Kerry Washington as the real-life major of WWII's all-Black, all-female battalion.

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See PEOPLE's full coverage of the 97th annual Academy Awards, airing on ABC.