VIDEO: Melissa Leo Explains Oscars F-Bomb On 'The View'

Melissa Leo may have been a bundle of nerves when she accepted her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fighter in February, but the audience was equally shaken when she slipped the f-word into her acceptance speech.

Other than the rampant criticism James Franco and Anne Hathaway endured for being lukewarm co-hosts, Leo bore the brunt of the post-Oscars fallout for her verbal slippage. On Wednesday’s episode of The View, she assured that she would have “never” done such a thing “on purpose.”

Host Whoopi Goldberg characteristically made a joke of the situation. “Where were you in your head? You thought you were at home!” Leo explained that her mind went blank once she was alone on stage and had to start speaking. “I was at sea, and I tried to start, and I knew I had no idea! I couldn’t gather a thought in my head!”

The ordeal is more surprising because Leo is no stranger to the rules of television filming. She had a brief stint on ABC’s All My Children in the ’80s before transitioning to film acting. “The most frightening thing about it is I’ve worked in — God bless it — network television for many many years. There’s rules. We know what the rules are,” she said. —KIMBERLY STEELE