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It was arguably the biggest blunder in Oscars history.
Viewers around the world watched on as Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway named LA LA Land as the winner of the 2017 Academy Award for Best Picture.
But as the cast filtered onto the stage and the acceptance speech neared an end, the film’s producer dropped a bombshell that no one saw coming.
“There’s been a mistake,” Jordan Horowitz announced to the crowd. “Moonlight has won Best Picture.”
“It’s not a joke,” he continued. “This is not a joke, come up here.”
But how did the Hollywood’s biggest moment of 2017 go so horribly wrong?
Horowitz has opened up about the mix up, telling The Hollywood Reporter it was clear “something was wrong.”
“Guys in headsets started buzzing around. They took the envelope I had. It said ‘Emma Stone, La La Land’ on it,” he revealed.
“They started looking for the best picture envelope. Nobody knew where it was. Then it appeared. They opened it next to me and it said ‘Moonlight.’ And so I grabbed it. I had to fix the situation.”
Following the wrap up of the ceremony, Dunaway wouldn’t elaborate on what had happened, telling media: “I’m not going to speak about it.”
However, she did confess to The Telegraph, the incident was “very quick.”
“The card read that way. It was a very off thing,” she said.
Horowitz has since been praised for how he handled the awkward situation, saying: “Look, we won six Oscars. The picture’s been a critical success, a financial success. It’s been a wild ride and it ended in spectacular fashion.”
Moonlight filmmaker Barry Jenkins has also said he had “much respect” for Horowitz, who had no qualms in handing the Oscar over to its rightful owner.
Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has since issued a statement apologising for the error.
“The presents had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected,” the statement read.
“We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.”
“We appreciate the grace which the nominees, the Academy, ABC and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”
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