Woman rescues Oscars red carpet from bin and turns it into rug for her flat
She climbed into the industrial bin and found dozens of rolled-up sections of the red carpet
A woman hunting for a rug for her Hollywood flat ended up with a far more unusual find - a chunk of the Oscars red carpet pulled from a bin.
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Paige Thalia, 32, had recently returned to Los Angeles after travelling and was trying to furnish her home on a budget.
Earlier in the week, while walking her cockapoo past the Dolby Theatre, the production assistant had seen crews rolling out the 50,000 sq ft carpet ahead of the Academy Awards.
She told The New York Times: “I got the idea, when I was walking her down the red carpet, that I could maybe track that down after the awards.”
So, just hours after the ceremony ended, she went back.
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In a TikTok video that has now racked up 3.5 million views, she said: “The carpet is gone."
She added: “It’s only 8.30[am]. I knew I should have come down at 5am.”
But the red carpet had not gone far.
Behind the theatre, near a television studio, she found it dumped in a green industrial bin.
After asking a security guard, ("I have an insane question...") she was allowed to take a piece.
She climbed in and found dozens of rolled-up sections, saying: “These are huge. Is it insane to take a huge piece?”
She eventually picked the smallest one she could carry, though still described it as “freaking huge”.
In another clip, after dragging it home through Hollywood, she joked: “Just vacuuming the Oscars red carpet in my living room.”
And even after a clean-up, it was still shedding a little Hollywood glamour.
She told The New York Times: “I did find a fake plant in it that must have come from some of the décor.
“There were also some sequins and some feathers from dresses. I need to track down who might have been wearing those.”