La La Land Wrongly Announced As Winner In Biggest Oscar’s Fail Of All Time
It was a ‘Steve Harvey’ moment on one of the biggest nights of the year
You would have thought that on one of the most rehearsed, globally scrutinised and watched nights of the year there couldn’t possibly be any room for error but when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong envelope for Best Actress in a Leading Role instead of Best Picture, Faye saw Emma Stone’s name (who did win that award on the night) interpreted that as the cue to announce La La Land as the winner of the coveted Best Picture Academy award.
“Actress in a Leading Role.”
Don't blame #WarrenBeatty #Oscars #BestPicture pic.twitter.com/hpVadk1N9n— Ryan Lavender (@RealLavender) February 27, 2017
The actual winner was in fact, Moonlight. A film depicting a man’s struggle with his personal relationships, it was made on a limited budget of $1.5 million and stars Naomie Harris, Janelle Monáe, Trevante Rhodes, it now holds the record for the Best Picture winner with the lowest budget in history.
The cast and crew of La La Land initially took the stage and were handed their Oscars whilst producer Jordan Horowitz began his speech before realising the error shown on the card in his hand and immediately turned the card to the camera, telling the audience: “This is not a joke, Moonlight have won Best Picture.” The audience immediately erupted in cheers and the winning cast and crew made their way to the stage to take their rightful places, with Adele Romanski, the producer of Moonlight exclaiming “I’m not sure this is real!” As she accepted her award.
Here’s the moment the error was announced the the audience, and the world:
One of the craziest whoa moments in the history of live event television #Oscars #Moonlight pic.twitter.com/ybxEAQe1UD
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017
As is with all good movies, there was a twist. Despite pictures of Warren Beatty holding the Best Actress in a leading role card, Emma Stone claimed she had in fact been holding her winning card the whole time, suggesting there had been an accidental duplicate of the envelope passed to the presenters in error.
When Emma Stone realizes the twist ending #Oscars #BestPicture pic.twitter.com/nkm1nDLnmE
— Marion Maitland (@nadatostada) February 27, 2017
As for Emma, she couldn’t have been more thrilled for the actual winners explaining, “I’m so excited for Moonlight! And of course, it was an amazing thing to hear La La Land. I think we all would have loved to win Best Picture, but we are so excited for Moonlight. I think it’s one of the best films of all time so I was pretty beside myself. I also was holding my Best Actress in a Leading Role card that entire time so whatever story… I don’t mean to start stuff but whatever story that was, I had the card. So I’m not sure what happened.”
Despite the internet, including celebrities like John Legend then celebrating the underdog winner via Twitter, Miss Universe also couldn’t resist having the last laugh…
Have your people call our people – we know what to do. #Oscars #MissUniverse
— Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) February 27, 2017