Samsung claims they didn’t pay for Ellen’s Galaxy Note 3 selfie during the Academy Awards

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Samsung claims they didn’t pay for Ellen’s Galaxy Note 3 selfie during the Academy Awards

In case you missed it, last night was the 86th annual Academy Awards hosted by everyone’s favorite daytime talk show star, Ellen DeGeneres. You may remember our post from last night where — as many of you noticed — Ellen was live tweeting from the event using a large, pleathery Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

Like anyone paid to endorse a product, this didn’t mean the Note 3 was her daily driver, made apparent by the fact that while backstage, Ellen was back to tweeting from her trusty iPhone.

The fact that the Note 3 made an appearance for the event didn’t really strike us as odd given Samsung was a paid sponsor of the Oscars — even airing the first two Samsung Galaxy S5 commercials during the show. While we may not ever actually see the official bill ABC left with Samsung, you may find it interesting to know that the Korean manufacturer is actually denying paying for the blatant product placement during the live show.

According to Samsung, they didn’t actually pay Ellen anything to show off the phablet or take the much publicized mid-show “selfie” using the device. Samsung’s official statement? It was completely “organic.”

Of course, we should note that Samsung did say that because they were so pleased with Ellen being a Note 3 fan, they were now donating $3 million to Ellen’s favorite charities. So, while the talk show host didn’t directly benefit from using the device during the awards, money was paid out.

We saw a lot of great actors take home the Oscar last night, but if there was an award for “Best PR speak from and Android OEM” — perhaps it should have went to Samsung? Ah, there’s always next year…

[TechCrunch]

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