Spike Lee is going to take it “Melo” on Oscar night.
The “Jungle Fever” director who is at center stage of an Oscar tune-out campaign said he’ll be at Madison Square Garden, watching the Knicks against Miami Heat, when the Academy Awards are handed out in Los Angeles next month.
“(On) Feb. 28th, we’ll be at the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden,” Lee told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “I’m going to a Knicks game.”
Lee, a front-row fixture and diehard Knicks fan, and actress Jada Pinkett Smith have said they’re skipping the Oscars in protest, after the Academy failed for a second consecutive year to nominate a single African American actor or actress for a major award.
Lee, though, said he doesn’t like the word “boycott.”
“I have never used the word `boycott,’ ” Lee said. “All I said was my beautiful wife Tonya, we’re not coming. That’s it, and I gave the reasons. I never used the word `boycott.’ ”
He stopped short of telling others not to watch the famed awards show.
“I’m not going. My wife’s not going,” Lee explained. “Everyone else can do what they want to do.”
But the Rev. Al Sharpton said he consulted with Lee before announcing on Tuesday he would lead a boycott of the awards show. The show is being emceed by comic and Brooklyn-native Chris Rock.