What happened at the 2017 Oscars?

Mistakes are commonplace in cinema, but when mistakes happen in real life — on the biggest night in cinema, no less — it goes down in history as one of the biggest blunders ever. Of course, we’re talking about the Oscars, which has seemingly become a controversial night when the biggest mistakes — including jaw-dropping slaps across the face — can take place in the blink of an eye.

That being said, one major mistake took place at the 89th Academy Awards, when screen legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the Best Picture winner in one of the most bizarre and unfathomable moments in Oscars’ history. And while Beatty and Dunaway are considered living legends, the problem was certainly not the fact that the duo were presenting. Instead, the only problem was that they were given the wrong card.

The incident at the 2017 Oscars, explained

As Beatty attempted to announce the winner for Best Picture, the world-renowned actor looked confused, then turned to his Bonnie and Clyde co-star Dunaway for assistance. Without skipping a beat, she read off La La Land. It was really no surprise. The musical comedy, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, was nominated for a whopping 14 Oscars and had already won six during the night, so they were heavily favored to win.

But their joy was short-lived — by two minutes and 30 seconds — as the cast and crew gathered on stage to make their speeches, the kerfuffle on stage made it obvious something was amiss. That’s when La La Land producer Fred Berger concluded his speech with, “We lost, by the way.” As Beatty started to clarify what happened, producer Jordan Horowitz interjected:

“Guys, I’m sorry, no. There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke.”

While the audience was stunned, the cast and crew of Moonlight were in disbelief. But the big questions is — who dropped the ball? Beatty clarified that he was originally confused because the card he was given said, “Emma Stone, La La Land.” It seems Stone’s Best Actress card was given to Beatty and Dunaway instead of the card for Best Picture

The La La Land cast and crew graciously presented the award to Moonlight, with Horowitz saying he would be proud to hand the award to his friends from Moonlight. As Beatty made his clarification, in case anyone was pointing the blame at him, Horowitz could be seen hugging the director and producers of Moonlight, before presenting the award to producer Jeremy Kleiner.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that counts the votes and determines the winners beforehand, took the blame for the error. Accountant Brian Cullinan accidentally handed the Best Actress envelope to Beatty and Dunaway by mistake. There are two copies of each envelope just in case something goes wrong, which is how there was another Best Actress card at play. PricewaterhouseCoopers have since established additional protocols to ensure an error like that doesn’t happen again.