At first, everyone thought the veteran actor was doing a bit when he looked confused after looking at the card. Beatty reportedly checked the envelope again to see if there was another card.
Seemingly playing along, Faye Dunaway playfully told him, “You’re impossible. Come on.” Beatty showed her the card, and she read it aloud, “‘La La Land.’”
Warren later explained that he wanted to tell her what happened. He opened the envelope, and it read, ‘Emma Stone, La La Land’. That is why he gave Dunaway a long look, and then the audience. He was genuinely confused.
Typically, there are people designated with a full set of envelopes on either side of the Oscar stage. They hand these over to the award presenters just before they step onto the stage, who then announce the winners.
So when Emma Stone won Best Actress, a duplicate Best Actress envelope was handed to Beatty by mistake as he came to present.
‘La La Land’ Team Takes the Stage
‘La La Land’ producer Jordan Horowitz was the first to speak when the team hit the stage. Marc Platt, his co-producer, followed with an acceptance speech.
As Marc was excitedly giving his speech, audience members noticed someone running across the stage behind him. Mahershala Ali, from ‘Moonlight’ and the best supporting actor award winner, noted something was off.
He would later tell the press, “When I did see security or people coming out on stage, and their moment was being disrupted in some way, I got really worried.”
The producers were approached by a man wearing a headset, who handed them another envelope. Marc called another ‘La La Land’ producer, Fred Berger, to the microphone.
As Fred began talking, Beatty headed to the microphone, but Fred beat him to the announcement, saying, “We lost, by the way, but, you know…”
Jordan chimed in, “Guys, I’m sorry, no, there’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won best picture.” Marc added, “This is not a joke, I’m afraid they read the wrong thing.” Jordan then held up the card to the audience to prove his point.
The La La Land team was visibly shocked at these turn of events. The audience’s faces were awash with shock and incredulity. Some were covering their mouths and faces.
The Academy Awards host, Jimmy Kimmel, then climbed onto the stage, in hopes of clearing the air. He joked to the ‘La La Land’ producers that they should just keep the award anyway.
Offstage, the ‘Moonlight’ team was in euphoria. The director, Barry Jenkins, had already accepted the initial result, but now covered his mouth.
Mahershala Ali said, “It threw me more than a bit. I didn’t want to go up there and take anything from somebody. It’s very hard to feel joy in a moment like that.”
The ‘Moonlight’ cast and crew did go on stage to receive the award. Kimmel, trying to lighten the mood for team ‘La La Land’, said, “This is very unfortunate what happened. Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this,” alluding to the famous faux pas the presenter made during the 2015 Miss Universe pageant.
Jordan announced, “I’m going to be very proud to hand this to my friends from ‘Moonlight.”
The question everyone asked is what cascade of mistakes led to the mix-up that had presenters read out the wrong names on the most important night in the movie world.
The Setup
Weeks prior to the Academy Awards ceremony, Oscar producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd selected Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to present the Best Picture award.
This was intentional to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the film, Bonnie and Clyde. It was a romantic addition to the evening’s programming, considering the two starred in it. They were being reunited on Hollywood’s biggest night of the year.
Beatty had also presented the Best Picture award during the 1975 and 1990 Oscars, so he was no stranger to the drill. What no one else knew was that the logistical structure supporting the presentation was flawed.
The auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have managed the balloting process for the Oscars since 1934. Two sets of envelopes are created for every award. They are kept on either side of the stage.
The first is the primary, and the second is a backup for each category. An emergency third envelope is held at an undisclosed location until the first two sets have been confirmed on location.
That evening, PwC senior partners Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz were stationed on either side of the stage, with the primary and backup sets of envelopes. The only task they had was to hand the right envelope to the right presenter.
After the confusion, metadata and video footage confirmed that Brian Cullinan had been on his mobile phone at 9.04 pm, a minute after Beatty and Dunaway had come on stage. A minute later, Cullinan posted a tweet of Emma Stone backstage with her Best Actress Oscar.
She had collected the trophy just minutes earlier for her role in ‘La La Land’. This tweet was later deleted.
Once Cullinan realised what had happened, he quietly told a stage manager, John Esposito, that he believed the wrong winner was announced, but he did nothing further.
Esposito then shared this information over the headset and prompted the head stage manager, Gary Natoli, to instruct another stage manager to have Ruiz open the second best picture envelope to confirm the film that won.
According to Mara Buxbaum, a guest of Casey Affleck, Natoli suddenly exclaimed, “Get them off the stage!” Moonlight won!” The stage manager left and went up there.
As later revealed, Dawn Hudson, the CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, had told Cullinan not to use his smartphone or any social media during the ceremony. This was because she realised he had done so at previous Oscar award ceremonies.
At the exact moment that Beatty needed the Best Picture envelope, Cullinan absent-mindedly handed him the backup envelope from the previous category, which had been presented. It read, ‘Emma Stone La La Land’.
The Envelope
Beatty would return to the microphone and address the audience, saying he opened the envelope and it read, ‘Emma Stone’. “That’s why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
The card design also contributed to the issue. Academy Award cards had a specific design with information in large and bold print. This meant that when Beatty extracted the card, his eyes were drawn to the largest text, ‘La La Land’.
Emma Stone’s name also appeared above it. Though the card’s visual hierarchy was meant to help the presenters read it quickly. But it also had the unintended effect of making the title feel like the answer, even if it wasn’t.
That year, the new design was set so that the category was printed on the outside of the envelope in embossed gold. Some noted that the red envelope was also harder to notice than in previous years.
To his credit, Beatty sensed that something was wrong and tried to stall. He was looking for someone to intervene, but everyone thought it was part of the act, so no one did. Dunaway then completed the sequence of errors.
Emma Stone also confirmed the confusion. According to an interview she did backstage, she was holding her Best Actress award the whole time. This confirmed that the duplicate system caused the mishap.
When Stone walked off with the Best Actress Envelope, Cullinan should have set the backup aside, but was still holding it. After posting his tweet, he handed it to Beatty instead of the Best Picture envelope.
Backlash Following the Mishap
PWC released a statement just after midnight that night. It read, “We sincerely apologise 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 statement elaborated that both Beatty and Dunaway had the wrong envelope in the wrong category. They reassured that there was a dependent assessment on what could have created such a mistake.
PWC eventually confirmed that Cullinan handed the backup envelope for Actress in a Leading Role rather than Best Picture. They also determined that once the error occurred, the protocols for correction were not followed quickly enough by Cullinan or his partner.
On Monday, the hashtags #Oscarfail and #Envelopegate trended widely on Twitter. Marketing experts were already musing that it would take PWC years to recover from their blunder.
A peer-reviewed research study conducted years later found that stock returns in the days following the error were lower for PWC audit clients in the region Cullinan managed. This implied damage to his and the firm’s reputations due to that night’s events.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy president, was critical of the PWC staff, saying, “They have one job to do. One job to do. Obviously, there was a distraction.” Isaacs reiterated that protocols existed for handling the winners’ envelopes, which had been established by the accounting firm, “and they have worked for 83 years.”
She commended the show producers, Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, as well as presenters Beatty and Dunaway, for handling the situation with grace.
Isaacs also confirmed that Cullinan and Ruiz were effectively removed from all Academy projects. New safeguards for the event were introduced, including a ban on PwC partners using mobile devices or social media during awards ceremonies.
Attendance during dress rehearsals would be mandatory, along with additional oversight. Despite this, PwC continued to retain the Oscars contract, which attracted public outrage.
Despite his mistake, Cullinan was not fired from PricewaterhouseCoopers. He and Ruiz remained with the organisation.
A year later, Cullinan pitched producers on a sketch involving him and Ruiz doing a sketch that night with Kimmel. The idea was shot down. PwC confirmed that Cullinan met with producers about a possible onstage appearance.
For the ‘La La Land’ crew, the night ended with a cruel joke. Horowitz handled the situation with composure, drawing admiration from all parties. The moment he held the correct card to the camera and presented the award to the ‘Moonlight’ team was a most dignified exit, despite the impossible situation.
For the ‘Moonlight’ team, the consequences were more complicated. Their win was drowned out by the media coverage generated by the mistake.
Jenkins and his cast had to stand on a stage cluttered with acceptance speeches from another team. They also had to take that win away from them while processing theirs.
That mishap cost the two minutes and twenty-three seconds of history that belonged to Moonlight, which they would never get back.
