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Who are the most fascinating people of the year?

From influential world leaders to A-list celebrities, some of the year’s biggest names in entertainment, sports and popular culture are sitting down with ABC’s Barbara Walters for her annual special, “Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year.”

The 90-minute-long program, now in its 20^th season, will air Wednesday, Dec. 12 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

The special features a wide-ranging list of eclectic figures, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, outspoken New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Olympic gold medal gymnast Gabby Douglas, the British boy band sensation One Direction, Academy-award winning actor/director/writer Ben Affleck, the 2013 Oscars host and creator of the cult classic, “Family Guy,” Seth MacFarlane, and one of the most famous authors in the world, EL James, the woman behind the steamy literary phenomenon, “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

The Number One Most Fascinating Person of 2012 will be announced on the program.

Over the past two decades, Walters has picked an diverse group of people for the honor of “Most Fascinating Person.” Last year, she chose former Apple CEO and tech innovator, the late Steve Jobs. Past choices have included J.K. Rowling, Nancy Pelosi, Camilla Park Bowles, Paris Hilton, Laura Bush, Gen. Tommy Franks, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and more.

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Seth MacFarlane, the mastermind behind ”Family Guy” and the 2012 comedy hit “Ted,”  will host the 85th Academy Awards in 2013.

ABC made the announcement in a press release today.

“We are thrilled to have Seth MacFarlane host the Oscars. His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh,” producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron said in the release. “He will be the consummate host, and we are so happy to be working with him.”

“It’s truly an overwhelming privilege to be asked to host the Oscars,” MacFarlane said in the release. “My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don’t find out I hosted the Charlie Sheen roast.”

MacFarlane’s hosting gig will mark his first appearance on the Oscar stage. Recently, he hosted the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” showing off his versatility as he sang and did voices during his opening routine.

MacFarlane made his feature directorial debut this past summer with the box office hit “Ted,” which he co-wrote and produced, while voicing the title character.  In addition to “Family Guy,” MacFarlane is also the co-creator of “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show.”

The 85th Annual Academy Awards will broadcast live on Feb. 24, 2013 on ABC.

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Miley Cyrus isn’t going to stand by and let anonymous people wish her harm via Twitter.  After one such person tweeted that that they wished the singer/actress dead because she “dresses like white trash” and is “so f***king hideous,” Miley responded, “U have nothing better 2 do than hate? That saddens me. Im surrounded by love Im sorry 4 whatever happened 2 make u so bitter.”

According to E! Online, the alleged death threats have been deleted, but Miley’s responses to them are still posted — and in one of them, she calls out Twitter for allowing this kind of abuse.   When fans suggested she simply ignore the haters, Miley wrote, “I wont tolerate someone telling me 2 die. I think Twitter needs to take some responsibility and make it a safe environment!”

Soon afterwards, Miley departed for Elton John’s annual Oscar night viewing party, where she looked absolutely gorgeous in a sophisticated, backless silver fishtail gown, with a vintage-style hairdo.  “Thank you Sir Elton John for such a lovely night!,” she tweeted. “Now to Vanity Fair. I love all the glitz & glam of the oscars & celebrating such talent!”

After ending Oscar night at in a Hollywood jail, actress Sean Young is demanding an apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her arrest outside the Academy’s official after-party at the Governor’s Ball.

Young was taken into custody Sunday night after she allegedly slapped a security guard who attempted to block her from entering the party, according to TMZ.

Young disputes the claim that she is at fault and took to Facebook to demand an apology from the Academy.

“Waiting on word from The Academy on a public apology,” wrote Young. “I think they have figured out it was in fact there security guards fault and may indeed feel they should issue an apology to me.”

According to TMZ, Young was standing near the entrance to the venue posing for pictures with stars, including Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Michelle Williams and Jonah Hill and Sandra Bullock, when security guards realized she didn’t have a ticket. Young was asked to leave, but returned. When security asked her to leave again, a guard placed an arm on Young, at which point she allegedly slapped him.

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Young claims that she was injured in the altercation, according to the Daily Mail. Yesterday morning, she showed bruises on her arms to reporters as evidence of the alleged manhandling by the security guards.

Young, who starred in “Blade Runner” and recently “Young and the Restless,” has a history of alcohol abuse. In 2011 her stay in rehab was depicted in “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.”

The talk surrounding Natalie Portman’s appearance on Sunday’s Academy Awards, focused not on her vintage red chiffon silk Christian Dior Couture gown, but instead on her wedding ring finger.

Portman presented the best actor award to The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin, and, according to Us, both she and her partner Benjamin Millepied were photographed wearing what Us describes as “unexplained new rings” on their wedding fingers after the event.

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The Frenchman was Natalie’s choreographer on Black Swan, for which she won the best actress award at last year’s Oscars.  The couple has seven-month-old son, Aleph.

So far, there has been no official word from the couple.

Actress Sean Young was arrested outside the Governor’s Ball, the Academy’s official Oscar after-party, after an alleged altercation with a security guard.

TMZ reported that the 52-year-old troubled actress was placed under citizen’s arrest by security until the Los Angeles Police Department arrived and took her into custody. She was taken to the Hollywood substation where she was booked for misdemeanor battery and released.

Her rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But while leaving the police station, Young told a cameraman for the website that she blamed the entire encounter on the Academy lawyer.

“I was standing outside the cord and waiting and seeing friends that were going up to the Governor’s Ball,” she said, when she was carted off by police.

“Shame on you for that,” she said of the Academy, adding that the lawyer should be fired.

According to TMZ, it was Young who was in the wrong.

The website said she was standing near the entrance posing for pictures with stars, such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Michelle Williams and Jonah Hill and Sandra Bullock, when security guards realized she didn’t have a ticket. Young was asked to leave and did so, but returned a short while later. This time, when security asked her to leave, a guard placed an arm on Young, at which point she allegedly slapped him.

She was then placed under citizen’s arrest.

Young, who appeared in “Blade Runner,” “No Way Out” and recently “Young and the Restless,” has a history of alcohol abuse, and her 2011 stay in rehab was depicted in “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.”

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Billy Crystal set the bar for hosting the Oscars, so returning to the helm for his ninth time after a long hiatus wasn’t easy. Crystal trotted out his song-and-dance medley of the best picture-nominated films and his signature bit of inserting himself into the year’s most memorable movies. But most reviewers agree Crystal wasn’t at his best, even if he did a better job than some recent hosts (read: James Franco). Then again, some reviewers blame Crystal’s dated performance on a show that chose safety over controversy and ended up feeling bland. Check out some of the reviews: Hollywood Reporter: “The colossal hosting disaster from last year is now forgotten by the safe, unfunny, retro-disaster that was Crystal making jokes that he laughed at repeatedly and overseeing an Oscars telecast that was as poorly paced as any in recent memory. While it’s true that the Oscar host gets too much blame when it goes wrong, there was nary a comedic bit from Crystal that didn’t seem like it came from the prior decade or was as obvious as a crying baby in church. If the Academy wanted safe, it got safe, but it also got what seemed like a lounge act that was entirely too chummy and self-satisfied. USA Today: “Still, if the show and its host weren’t all we might have hoped, it would be unwise to underestimate the value of the reliable competence Crystal brought. … Give me Crystal, even a second-level Crystal, anytime.” The New York Times: “The whole night looked like an AARP pep rally, starting with an introduction by Morgan Freeman, who was followed by Billy Crystal, returning to host his ninth Oscar ceremony. … For a town that prides itself on tinsel and titillation, the night was pretty tame. Angelina Jolie showed some leg, Jennifer Lopez showed quite a bit of cleavage, but the raciest moment may have been when Sandra Bullock introduced the foreign-language film award in German.” Variety: “The whole introductory sequence felt like a pallid sequel — a ghost of Oscars past — and not solely because the host had to labor to incorporate nine nominees. … Joke all you want, but for a night, anyway, Oscar unabashedly showed its age. And if that represented an improvement over 2011, chalk it up to this ballot grading on a curve.”

Octavia Spencer did not see Hollywood’s biggest names leap to their feet when she was announced as Best Supporting Actress at Sunday night’s Oscars.  Nor did she hear the thunderous applause that filled the El Capitan Theatre as she made her way to the stage to accept Hollywood’s biggest award.

“The only thing I remember is I thought, Christian Bale, he was saying a name and I thought, ‘Is there anybody else’s name that begins with a vowel… “O… and not falling down,’” the star of “The Help” said today on “Good Morning America.”

“Everything else just went to white noise,” Spencer, 39, said of the moments after Bale, last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner, called her name.

She won an Oscar, in her first time nominated, for her portrayal of maid Minny Jackson in “The Help,” the big screen adaptation of the Kathryn Stockett book about Southern life in the 1960s amid the civil rights movement.

“I did [get to a pillow] but he just laid across my lap,” Spencer said of how she celebrated her win well into the night with her Oscar.

“It was the most spectacular night of my life,” she said.  “I’m on adrenaline right now. I’m so elated.  I love it.”

The “white noise” Spencer experienced when her name was called out among Hollywood’s elite subsided by the time she arrived onstage, allowing her to compliment Bale, her presenter.

“Thank you, academy, for putting me with the hottest guy in the room,” she said.

Jokes aside, Spencer’s tearful speech also saluted her co-stars and crew that drove the film’s onscreen and awards season success, a sentiment she echoed today on “GMA.”

“I see myself just as a link in the chain,” she said of the movie’s cast, which also included fellow nominees Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain.

“You never see yourself as the forefront.  I hope I never start seeing myself as the forefront,” she said.  “We had a very strong and beautiful chain.  That was the most amazing cast and crew.”

Spencer’s role in the film came in part from her longtime friendship with the film’s writer-director, Tate Taylor, who has said he used Spencer as inspiration for spunky maid Minny who refused to let her role as a domestic worker keep her quiet.

“The sass definitely comes naturally,” Spencer said on “GMA” of playing Minny.  “It’s all the other stuff in her that I had to find.  The sass is no problem.”

Backstage, the now three-time Oscar-winning actress, 62, revealed the fashion disaster Helland caused her early  in the  show when he accepted his own Oscar, his first.

Read the full list of 2012 Oscar winners.

“I broke the belt,” Streep told ” Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts of the mishap to her long-sleeve, Oscar-gold gown by Lanvin when she celebrated Helland’s win for his work transforming Streep into Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.”

“I jumped up and the belt went [crack], so I had a wardrobe misfunction in the fourth award,” she said.

PHOTOS: Best and Worst Dressed on the Oscar Red Carpet

While Streep was suffering from wardrobe distress, her fellow Oscar-winning actress, Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, told Roberts that she was just happy she made it to the stage safely.

“I think they were happy that I didn’t fall down these stairs,” “The Help” star said of the standing ovation she received when her name was called and she made the treacherous walk from her seat to the stage.

Click here for 5 more backstage Oscars moments.

It was only with the Oscar safely in her hand, Spencer revealed, that she felt the audience’s love, and channeled an earlier Oscar winner.

“Well, this in the words of Sally Field, they like me, they really like me,” Spencer said.  “It’s wonderful.”

“I have this affair with this guy,” she said of her first-time Oscar.  “He is going to lay on the pillow next to me tonight.”

While the ladies felt the love and repaired their wardrobes, the leading winners on the men’s side revealed to Roberts what winning Hollywood’s most coveted award means to them.

“I don’t go around all my life thinking about the Oscars … but when it happens it comes as sort of a huge knockout surprise,” Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer said.

“It rejuvenates your career a little bit,” said Plummer, 82, now the oldest Oscar-winning actor ever.  “It reminds people you still have a pulse.”

For Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin, the win was equal to the love of a country.

“It’s a love, a love from America,” said Frenchman Dujardin, who took home the prize for his work in Best Picture winner “The Artist.”

“It’s unbelievable for a stupid, French actor,” he said.  “Now I’m stupid, but I have an Oscar.”

Full coverage of the 2012 Oscars. 

Songwriter Siedah Garrett hopes to take home Oscar for her song. (Courtesy In the Mirror Productions)

When the 84^th Academy Award nominations were announced in January, one category was noticeably sparse: Best Original Song.  For the first time since the category was introduced 76 years ago, only two songs, “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets,” and “Real in Rio” from “Rio,” are up for the award.

The reason for the lack of nominees is the rating system the Academy has in place. First, no more than five songs can be nominated and the song has to play an integral role in the film. Then the 236 members of the Academy’s music branch score submissions on a half-point scale from 6 to 10 and only those with a rating of 8.25 or above will be considered.

One woman who isn’t complaining about the lack of nominees is Siedah Garrett, the lyricist for “Real in Rio,” who is best known for co-writing Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and dueting with the legend on his number-one hit, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.”

This isn’t Garrett’s first opportunity to take Oscar home. In 2006, her Grammy Award-winning song “Love You I Do” from “Dreamgirls” was nominated, but lost to “I Need to Wake Up” by Melissa Etheridge.

Although Garrett said she is “ecstatic” that she has a 50 percent chance of winning this year, neither she nor Sergio Mendes, co-composer of “Real in Rio,” were happy when they learned they would not have the opportunity to sing the song at the ceremony after it was decided the nominated songs would not be performed.

“I’m so bummed I can’t even tell you. I was so looking forward to performing our song with Sergio on that night,” Garret said. “Then when they told us it wasn’t going to happen, it was like wa,wa, wa, wa.”

Garrett got involved in “Rio” toward the end. Mendes and musician Carlinhos Brown had already been working on the soundtrack for close to a year.

Initially, they were writing songs in Portuguese, but then it was determined they would go in another direction. Garrett was tasked with writing English lyrics that sounded like the Portuguese ones that had already been written and recorded. With just days to complete the assignment, Garrett came through.

Life for the 51-year-old Los Angeles native has come a long way since she worked at an insurance company. She’s had her share of opportunities that have led her to where she is today. She said her first break came while washing her car in her driveway. She had the radio on and heard the DJ say that callers could call in and talk with Sergio Mendes. Garrett ran to the phone.

“To this day I do not know why I asked this question. I asked, ‘Sergio, are you looking for any singers?’” Garrett recalled.

Mendes informed her he was. She met with him at his home and played him a few of her recordings. The next thing she knew, Mendes’ wife handed her a cassette with three songs in Portuguese and told her she had five days to learn them. She did and was asked to go on tour with the Brazilian musician.

Perhaps her biggest break was being chosen by Quincy Jones in 1984 to join a group he was forming called Deco. More than 800 hopefuls auditioned, but it was Garrett and three male vocalists who won his attention. Their first project was working on the soundtrack for “Fast Forward,” a film directed by Sidney Poitier.

Although the film was a flop, Garrett wrote and sang “Do You Want It Right Now,” which hit number three on Billboard’s dance chart.

Through working with Jones, who had worked on Michael Jackson’s first two solo albums, Garrett was in the right position to cross paths with the King of Pop. When she heard he was working on a follow-up to “Thriller,” she began writing some lyrics around a phrase she once overheard someone saying on the phone: Man in the mirror.

After Jones played the demo of “Man in the Mirror” with Garrett’s vocals for Jackson, he not only loved the song, he loved her voice so much he passed on other notable singers who were being considered to duet with him on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and chose her.

Both “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Man in the Mirror” became number one hits and changed Garrett’s life.

Garrett is currently recording a new album titled “The Answer’s Always Love,” which will be released in May through ArtistShare, a fan-funded model that allows fans to finance new projects. The album will contain a tribute song to Jackson called “Keep on Loving You.”

Even though Garrett has had a successful career, she said she wishes she had received more recognition as a singer; something she had always dreamed of.

“I was going to be Beyoncé before Beyoncé,” Garrett said. “As a black female, every record label I’ve ever been on wanted to throw me in the R&B category because I’m black. I’m a pop singer and a pop songwriter. I think that was my problem as an artist. I couldn’t be pigeon-holed. They didn’t know what to do with me.”

That’s why Garrett turned to songwriting.

“You can’t keep going to the same trap when there is no cheese in it,” she said.

Garrett doesn’t hold on to what could’ve been. She knows the power she’s had as a songwriter. A woman once told her that “Man in the Mirror” saved her life. The woman said that after contemplating suicide, she reconsidered after listening to the song over and over.

“Baby, as a songwriter, that is the highest compliment,” Garrett said. “That is the reason I write songs — to change lives.”