BLUNDERLAND
As La La Land wrongly named best film Academy’s probe into gong gaffe
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OSCARS chiefs last night launched a huge probe after the biggest cock-up in awards history.
Hollywood stars and a TV audience of 1.2billion were stunned as La La Land was incorrectly named Best Picture.
The show was due to be dominated by stars bashing US president Donald Trump but the farce over the final and biggest award of the night overshadowed the ceremony.
Coming-of-age film Moonlight was the real Best Picture winner but award presenter Warren Beatty had been given the wrong envelope.
His co-presenter Faye Dunaway read out La La Land starting an excruciating sequence of events.
Organisers had to interrupt La La Land’s producers during their speeches and tell them the real winner was Moonlight.
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz then announced the correct result to a shocked audience.
Dreadful
Holding up the real envelope, he said: “There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke. Come up here.”
Last night red-faced organisers PriceWaterhouseCooper, which counts the votes, admitted it was behind the dreadful blunder.
The global accounting giant said it was now investigating how the envelope for Best Actress – won by La La Land’s Emma Stone – ended up in Beatty’s hands.
PWC’s Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan, the only two who know the results before they are revealed, will be at the centre of the probe.
They both had identical briefcases with each of the result envelopes inside but the wrong one was given to Beatty, 79.
A PWC spokesman said: “We sincerely apologise to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error made during the award announcement for best picture.”
Faye, 76, leapt to Beatty’s defence saying: “It wasn’t Warren’s fault.”
Meanwhile, Miss Universe bosses mocked their own awards gaffe after the Oscars fiasco.
Miss Colombia was falsely announced winner of the pageant in 2015 and the Miss Universe Twitter account joked: “Have your people call our people – we know what to do.”