There was disaster at the Oscars on
Sunday night when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway wrongly announced La La Land
as the winner of Best Picture, rather than the triumphant Moonlight.
In a heart-stopping moment, the stars and producers of La La
Land were stopped midway through their acceptance speeches and forced to hand
their trophies to the stars of Moonlight.
The terrible end to an otherwise triumphant show left the
audience gasping in horror as Beatty revealed he had incorrectly read La
La Land as the winner.
Beatty blamed the epic mishap on being given the wrong
envelope, saying he had seen the name Emma Stone from 'La La Land' when he
opened his envelope.
'I want to tell you what happened I opened the envelope and
it said Emma Stone, La La Land and that is why I took such a long look at Faye
and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny. This is Moonlight for best picture,'
Beatty told the shocked crowd as he explained the blunder.
Hours after the blunder, accounting firm PwC, formerly Price
Waterhouse Coopers, who tally the Oscar results, and the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences issued a joint statement to
apologize for the biggest Oscar screw up in the ceremony's history.
The statement said: 'We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La
La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was
made during the award announcement for Best Picture.
'The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category
envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently
investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this
occurred.
'We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the
Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.'
An investigation is continuing into how La La Land was wrongly named Best
Picture rather than the triumphant Moonlight.
Only two people know the Oscars winners list and supervise
the counting procedures - PwC tax adviser Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan an
accountant who is the chairman of PwC's US board.
Just days before the showcase event, they told the Huffington Post that they were unsure of the exact
procedure in the event that the wrong actor or film was named as a winner in
any given category since such a mistake had never been made in the awards'
88-year history.
Cullinan and Ruiz each carry a suitcase containing a copy of
the winning envelope for all the categories - meaning there are two envelopes
for each award.
The pair stand on opposite sides backstage and memorize the
winners to avoid having to write them down and have revealed in the past how
they carry out rigorous checks to ensure they have stuffed the envelopes
correctly.
When Beatty and Dunaway took the stage to announce the Best
Picture award, Cullinan and Ruiz realized that they still had two best picture envelopes.
The best picture envelope for Moonlight hadn't yet been opened.
Executives from PwC immediately realized there was a
problem, but they were too late to rectify the mistake as Dunaway read
out the name La La Land. An official tried to get on stage to immediately
afterward.
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz returned to the
microphone after being told about the mix up and said 'Moonlight won Best
Picture' and insisting that 'this is not a joke'.
Just seconds before, confusion was etched across Beatty's
face after he opened the envelope. He took a second glance inside the winner's
envelope before showing it to Dunaway who mistakenly thought he was asking her
to read out La La Land.
'It's one of the strangest things that's ever happened to
me,' Beatty said backstage. 'Thank God there were two of us up there,' Dunaway
responded.
The actress then asked Beatty, 'Who else should I tell?'
'Everybody,' he said.
At that point, a security guard tried to take the real
envelope and Beatty said, 'Security is not getting this. I'm giving it to
(Moonlight director) Barry Jenkins at a later time.' Beatty also refused to
show it to anyone else.