‘We Are Currently Investigating How This Could Have Happened’: Oscars’ Auditors Apologize for ‘La La Land’ ‘Moonlight’ Mixup

‘Deeply Regret That This Occurred’

The 89th Annual Academy Awards show was running overtime by at least an hour when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty came onstage to announce the Oscar for Best Picture. It didn’t go smoothly. Beatty opened the envelope, looked confused, showed it to Dunaway who read the name on the card: La La Land.

Two-and-a-half speeches in, a worried Beatty interrupts and confusion reigns. La La Land’s producer Jordan Horowitz, in an incredibly gracious and honorable moment, made sure the audience knew that his film did not win.

“Guys, guys, I’m sorry. No. There’s a mistake,” Horowitz said. “’Moonlight,’ you guys won best picture. This is not a joke.”

After 83 years without a hitch, it appears the Oscars’ auditors made a mistake.

“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,”  PricewaterhouseCoopers, aka PwC, said in a rather passive statement.

“The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected,” PwC added. “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,” the statement concluded.”

Unofficially, the explanation seems to be the two auditors in charge of stuffing the envelopes, the only two who know the winners before anyone else, each stand on either side of the stage with a bag containing the envelopes. So there are two bags, two sets of cards. That’s how Emma Stone’s Best Actress envelope wound up in her hand as Dunaway read La La Land. The wrong card was given to the presenters.

Curiously, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences hasn’t said a word… 

After the show, the spotlight more often than not was on Emma Stone and the La La Land team as reporters rush to them to share how they were feeling, once again taking the focus away from the first LGBT themed film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. 

But here’s Moonlight director Barry Jenkins: