Oops, our bad: ‘Moonlight’ really won in major mess-up
LOS ANGELES — It was one of the most awkward moments in the history of the Oscars, of television, in entertainment, heck maybe in American history.
And somehow Warren Beatty, Hollywood’s ultimate smooth leading man, was at the centre of it, and the accounting firm that is responsible for the integrity of Oscar voting apologized and was vowing a full investigation.
The producers of “La La Land” were nearly done with their acceptance speeches for Best Picture, the Oscar broadcast’s credits sequence about to roll, when a stir of whispers began on stage. Moments later “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz returned to the microphone and said “Moonlight won Best Picture” and insisting that “this is not a joke.”
The collective jaw of the crowd at the Dolby Theatre — and of America — remained dropped long after they became convinced it was no joke, but what academy historians later called an apparently unprecedented Oscar error. The accounting firm PwC, formerly Price Waterhouse Coopers, said early Monday that Beatty and Dunaway had been given the wrong envelope.