Did Ryan Gosling Send Eva Mendes a Message During Oscars?

Ryan Gosling’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gesture at the end of his musical performance at Sunday’s 96th Academy Awards has sparked speculation that it was a discreet nod to his longtime partner, Eva Mendes.

The actor put on an electrifying performance of his Barbie track “I’m Just Ken” at the ceremony. It included cameos from the song’s writer Mark Ronson, the other “Kens” from the movie, such as Ncuti Gatwa, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, and Kingsley Ben-Adir. Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash also joined the rousing spectacle.

Fans went wild for the performance, particularly as Gosling offered the microphone to his La La Land and Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star Emma Stone to sing along.

After belting out his concluding note of the track, Gosling was seen holding up the dog tag on his chain before kissing it as the camera panned wide. The heartwarming gesture led viewers to speculate that it was a gesture for actress Eva Mendes.

A Gosling fan account on X, formerly Twitter, posted the footage, adding the caption: “Ryan Gosling kissing his necklace. Sending a ❤️ message to Eva Mendes & the kids?”

Gosling, 43, and Mendes, 50, whose relationship was revealed in 2011 after they worked together on the movie The Place Beyond the Pines, are parents of daughters Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amada Lee, 7.

“OMG I didn’t even notice that at first,” one fan responded, while another said: “This is soo cute!!”

Another X user pointed out that it could also have been a gesture to his late dog George, who passed away in December 2016 at the age of 17.

“Not sure but it might be the tag he had for his dog George who passed away a while back,” they wrote. “He wears that everywhere. He has one for Eva’s dog too.”

Newsweek has contacted a representative of Gosling via email for comment.

Gosling, who wore a T-shirt with George’s picture on it when he closed out his hosting of Saturday Night Live in 2017, also had the dog tag during an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show.

“There was something about George where…I think he felt like being a dog was beneath him,” Gosling said, prompting laughs from the audience. “He would not do tricks. If you wanted him to sit down, you had to sort of convince him it was in his best interest. Like, ‘Look, we’re gonna be in this car for about three hours, so if you want to sit down you might be more comfortable this way.’ Then he might consider it.”

He added: “George, as he started to age, started to look like an aging rock star. He was sort of skinny-fat, he had big hair and no teeth—some open sores. But still sexy.”

Whomever Sunday night’s dog tag kiss was dedicated to, Mendes expressed support for Gosling in social media posts during the show.

Following Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken,” Mendes, who did not walk the red carpet at the Oscars, shared a photo of herself posing in a pink blazer and black cowboy hat as she wrote on Instagram: “You took Ken all the way to the Oscar’s, RG. Now come home, we need to put the kids to bed. 💋”

In another Instagram post, Mendes shared footage that showed her dressed in denim as she posed by the door to Gosling’s Oscars dressing room backstage.

“Always by my man,” the Hitch star captioned the post, in which “I’m Just Ken” served as the soundtrack.