How did the Oscars mix-up happen?
A confused Beatty paused over the envelope but Ms Dunaway announced the award for La La Land.
Unsure of whether to make the announcement, he turned to his co-presenter who took a look the paper and said the victor was “La La Land”.
Casey Affleck and Emma Stone took home their first Oscars for Manchester by the Sea and La La Land respectively.
But then the unthinkable happened. La La Land’s cast and producers took the stage and began their speeches before Horowitz displayed the winning card to the cameras.
The musical had already won four other awards at the event held at the Dolby Theater, and almost clinched a fifth, until it was revealed Moonlight was the true victor.
Harvey later explained the gaffe as a human error and the producers of the show apologized for the mistake, saying these kinds of incidents sometimes happen during live telecasts. I had urged her agency to check any photograph which might be used and understand that they were told that the Academy had it covered.
Warren Beatty had sadly read the card for the previous award, which had seen Emma Stone win Best Actress for La La Land.
“I ain’t going to make no mistake this time, baby”, he said.
Actress Rosalind Russell also experienced a similar situation in 1948, when she wrongly assumed she was about to win the Best Actress award for “Mourning Becomes Electra”.
The musical had been the favourite to win.
The disastrous “La La Land”-“Moonlight” mistake of 2017 is rivalled only by the Best Director debacle of 1934, at the sixth Academy Awards. In the middle of the confusion, Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel even quipped about Harvey.
“I don’t know what happened”.
Yep, he’s taking full advantage of this one, and I don’t blame him. “I wasn’t speechless because we won”.
Only, it wasn’t. To the astonishment of everyone in the room and everyone watching on TV, the wrong movie was announced as the victor.
As the team behind La La Land confirmed that Moonlight was indeed the true victor of the night’s top honor, Beatty stepped forward to shine a light on the shocking oversight explaining, “I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, La La Land”.
The London-based accounting firm that handles the Academy Awards red tape admitted as much.
Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.