Pizza man ‘shocked’ to receive $1,000 tip from Ellen for Oscars delivery

The man who delivered pizza to actors during the Oscars ceremony revealed he thought he was only going to be feeding backstage staff at the awards ceremony.

A number of Hollywood’s stars dipped into their pockets to see Edgar Martirosyan go back to work with a $1,000 (€730) tip.

Martirosyan, a franchisee for the Big Mama’s and Big Poppa’s Pizzeria Hollywood, appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show to tell of experience of mingling with the world’s biggest acting stars.

He told the Oscars host that he thought he would only be giving the pizzas to writers and producers backstage. “[Ellen] said just follow me, and I’m going and I’m on a stage. I was in shock.”

Martirosyan was taken into the audience by DeGeneres to deliver pizzas to Hollywood stars.

He told her he was most excited by seeing actress Julia Roberts. “She was like my woman in dreams. I always watched her movies… it was something crazy — crazy to me to deliver.”

Degeneres said: “I passed a hat around, and I ended up getting about $600, something like that. Here’s some more. Here’s a thousand dollars, so you have a total of $1,000.”

Big Poppa’s CEO Aro Agakhanyan said the appearance at the Oscars is proving to be a hit for the chain that he started with his brother Allen.

Meanwhile the Oscars hit a 10-year high for ratings. The 86th Academy Awards were seen by 43 million Americans, drawing the biggest audience of any entertainment programme since the finale of Friends in May 2004, according to estimates by Nielsen.

DeGeneres’ celebrity selfie with stars including Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence, had nearly 100,000 retweets within five minutes.

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— The Ellen Show (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

The show’s ratings were up 6% from last year’s show, hosted by comic Seth MacFarlane.

While reviews overall were mixed, many critics praised DeGeneres, in particular for spending much of the evening among the audience, rather than on stage.

“The show was trim, fleet, elegant, and organic, with few unnecessary bells and whistles; almost everything in it seemed to have a purpose,” said Entertainment Weekly.

But not everyone was convinced. “This year’s Oscars was more like an endurance test — turgid, badly directed, poorly produced and featuring an endless string of tired or wince-inducing moments from host Ellen DeGeneres,” said the Hollywood Reporter.