Demi Moore winning Best Actress at the 2025 Oscars would have put an exclamation point on her Hollywood comeback story. While she didn’t take home gold, it doesn’t tarnish her accomplishments with The Substance — nor does it make her less of a winner in her daughters’ eyes.

Moore, 62, swept most of the awards season for her role in the movie, which showed the challenges actresses over 50 face in Hollywood. Her inspiring acceptance speeches were warmly received, including her comments about being dismissed as a “popcorn actress” and a “little girl who didn’t believe in herself.” However, the Oscars were a mountain for Moore to climb. Horror films like The Substance don’t get a lot of love from the academy.

There’s disappointment from Moore fans today over her loss to Anora’s Mikey Madison, 25, and the fact that it echoes the theme of Moore’s film. Many tabloids zeroed in on this in reporting on her loss, with stretches of epic proportion — the Daily Mail said Moore couldn’t “hide her fury,” while another outlet claimed she was “gritting her teeth” before she “regained her composure.” You try losing in front of 20 million viewers with a camera trained on your face and tabloids ready to jump on the catfight narrative.

While an Oscar would have been the cherry on top of a spectacular awards season run, Moore’s three daughters with ex-husband Bruce Willis — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah — made it clear that their matriarch is a winner in their eyes either way.

Moore with her girls — Tallulah, Rumer and Scout Willis — at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party. (Stefanie Keenan/VF25/WireImage for Vanity Fair)

Rumer posted an Instagram tribute to Moore — “My mama. My hero. My forever winner” — ahead of the show. It included photos of the actress’s many blockbuster films — Ghost, St. Elmo’s Fire, Indecent Proposal, Striptease, G.I. Jane and so on — reminding followers that since the 1980s, Moore has been big-screen gold.

“Watching you today, standing in your power, in your brilliance, in the culmination of decades of hard work, resilience, and undeniable talent — I have never been more proud,” Moore’s eldest wrote. “You have dedicated your life to your craft, pouring every ounce of yourself into the stories you tell, the characters you bring to life, and the barriers you continue to break. And tonight, the world gets to witness what I have always known: you are a force.”

Rumer ended by writing, “No matter what happens tonight, you are already victorious in my eyes. Because your legacy isn’t just in the awards or accolades — it’s in the way you have redefined what’s possible, for yourself and for every woman who dares to dream.”

Scout used the same social site to call Moore the “queen of my heart.” In an Instagram Story, she wrote, “This woman is nothing but integrity, bright beaming light and love! What grace. I’ve never been more proud to be her daughter.” And in yet another, she declared: “I’ve never been more proud to be a part of this family.”

Tallulah wore a “Demi F***ing Moore” sweatshirt to get ready. She shared a post-Oscars photo of Moore cuddling her best canine friend, Pilaf, enjoying a snack of french fries, writing, “MY winner.” She later said she enjoyed “celebrating my hero, my mama” and was so “grateful to be able to love on her all night.”

Moore was flanked by her daughters at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

Moore’s 2019 memoir, Inside Out: A Memoir, detailed her challenging upbringing — and how it all caught up with her in adulthood. She claimed that her mother allowed a man to rape her when she was 15, giving the predator not just the key to their home but accepting $500 from him. By the time Moore starred in 1985’s St. Elmo’s Fire, she had developed a cocaine addiction, masking her inner pain of a horrible childhood, and was ordered to rehab.

Moore married Bruce in 1987 and they welcomed their trio of loyal supporters. During that time, she starred in hit after hit, and was the highest paid actress of the time. She was also one of the most criticized.

After Moore split from Bruce, she married her third husband, Ashton Kutcher — 15 years her junior — and started drinking again, breaking 20 years of sobriety. By then, her career had slowed down and her roles were sporadic. Amid her split from Kutcher in 2012, Moore, who was a shell of herself as tried to please her younger husband, suffered a drug-induced seizure and was hospitalized before being sent to rehab.

“Part of my life was clearly unraveling,” Moore told the New York Times in 2019. Moore’s daughters — from whom she became estranged for a time in that era — said on Red Table Talk the same year that it was “like the sun went down and like a monster came” when Moore fell off the wagon.

Moore not only got sober again, but did some deep soul-searching to heal her inner child as well as the friction with her daughters. Since she started to care for her mental health, they’ve grown tighter than ever. Bruce’s aphasia diagnosis deepened their bond. (Moore is also close with Bruce’s current wife, Emma Heming Willis, who used Instagram to cheer for her on Oscar night.)

While Moore didn’t get a chance to deliver an Oscars speech, she gave many memorable ones as she collected her other trophies all awards season long.

At the SAG Awards in February, she talked about how when she started acting in 1978 at “15 — almost 16 … it changed my life because it gave me meaning. It gave me purpose and it gave me direction because I was a kid, on my own, who had no blueprint for life,” raising herself because her mother was so troubled. She marveled that the “little girl who didn’t believe in herself,” had come so far.

At the Globes in January, she talked about winning her first award in her 45-year career and how, despite all her successful films, she was told by a director she’d never be more than a “popcorn actress” and that made her think “this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have.”

Moore said during her acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards, it was “so far beyond anything I could have hoped for” and praised the association for recognizing “what this film is about, what it’s trying to convey. … Your acknowledgment is almost like the elixir, it’s the healing balm to the very issue the film brings forward.”

Moore has proved that you can still win even when you don’t.