The Academy Awards faced a major embarrassment Sunday night as presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway awarded the Best Picture Oscar to La La Land, when it was supposed to go to Moonlight.
The producers of La La Land had already begun their acceptance speech when they were interrupted by a stagehand, who brandished an envelope that said Moonlight had won best picture.
Beatty then tried to explain that, somehow, he’d been given an envelope for the Best Actress Oscar, which had, just moments before, been awarded to Emma Stone for her role in La La Land. He said he briefly conferred with Dunaway, before handing out the statuette.
Luckily, the producers and cast of La La Land were gracious and immediately handed their awards off to Barry Jenkins and the cast and crew of Moonlight. Jenkins could barely believe it. “Even in my dreams this could not be true,” he said as he picked up the award. But to hell with dreams!”
The host, Jimmy Kimmel, tried to make light of the situation, joking that he’d deliberately not invited Steve Harvey (who gave a beauty pageant crown to the wrong contestant last year). “I blame myself for this,” Kimmel told the audience, laughing. “I knew I would screw this up.”
Jenkins was so flustered that he gave a brief speech before hugging his cast and moving offstage. But if he’d meant to make his acceptance political, Twitter gladly stepped in to fill the role.
President Donald Trump has not yet weighed in on the mistake.