Jenna Ortega was among the major winners at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday.

She took home the prize for Best Performance in a Show for her popular Netflix series Wednesday.

Like many of the evening’s other nominees, she wasn’t on hand to accept the award.

Sunday’s show became a stripped-down affair after Drew Barrymore withdrew as host in solidarity with striking members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), and the show opted to no longer be live after many guests and nominees said they wouldn’t be willing to cross a picket line.

Ortega has a bit of history with the striking writers — who are battling studios to fix years of anemic pay and Hollywood’s attempts shorten TV seasons, hire fewer writers and potentially replace them with so-called ‘AI’ technology — as some of them poked fun at her on their picket signs due to recently resurfaced comments she made about unilaterally changing the scripts for her Addams Family spin-off series.

Jenna’s win was particularly impressive, as she was competing in a stacked category.

Other stars vying for the golden popcorn included Aubrey Plaza, who was acclaimed for her role as a suspicious wife in the second season of HBO’s hit series The White Lotus.

Christina Ricci also scored a nod for her creepy role in Showtime’s Yellowjackets, while Riley Keough was nominated for her Amazon series Daisy Jones & The Six, which follows a fictional 1970s band inspired by Fleetwood Mac.

Sadie Sink’s standout turn in the fourth season of Stranger Things yielded a nomination, as did Selena Gomez’s work in the Hulu comedy series Only Murders In The Building, on which she costars with Steve Martin and Martin Short.

Although Jenna emerged triumphant, it was an anti-climactic moment, as she wasn’t around in any capacity to accept the award.

Some stars, including Pedro Pascal and Jennifer Coolidge, accepted their awards virtually, and both stated that they were in solidarity with striking writers.

Although Drew Barrymore sat out her hosting gig, she made a live virtual appearance after winning the Best Host award, and she made sure to thank the writers of her hit talk show.

But Ortega didn’t even appear virtually to accept her award, so the show moved on without a pause.

Ortega has lately been in the news in connection with the WGA strike after comments she made in March on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast began making the rounds again.

At the time, she revealed that she became ‘unprofessional’ on the set of Wednesday’s by changing several of the title character’s lines, contrary to what the screenwriters had come up with.

‘There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines,’ she explained.

‘The script supervisor thought I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they’d be like, “Wait, what happened to the scene?” And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.’

The creative team appear to have appeased her, as she was not a producer on the project, and an actor normally would not be given that kind of leeway on set to overrule writers, directors and producers.

‘Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all,’ she complained, before noting some of the changes she made.

‘Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she says, “Oh my god, I love it! I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.” And I had to go, “No, there’s no way.’

Many striking writers have been writing humorous or punny statements on their signs, and some playfully poked fun at Ortega’s statements.

‘Without writers, Jenna Ortega will have nothing to punch up!’ joked House Party writer Brandon Cohen in a tweet posted by Variety on May 3.

Earlier, the writer Nick Adams joked on Twitter that the self-described writer Ortega ‘better be back from NY for her afternoon shift on the picket line.’

‘Rewriting is writing! See you at the line, Jenna! [black heart emoji],’ added Karen Joseph Adcock.

Ortega’s series Wednesday has been renewed for a second season with Netflix.