The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Kimmel ‘felt like idiot but was trying not to laugh’ during chaos
‘Except for the end, it was a lot of fun’, says presenter after bizarre conclusion to ceremony
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel has described the chaos around the best picture announcement at the ceremony as “the weirdest TV finale since Lost”.
Kimmel was left standing amid the confusion on stage when La La Land was wrongly declared the winner of the biggest prize of the night, which then was presented to Moonlight.
Bonnie And Clyde stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong card by the accountants overseeing the Oscar ballots.
Speaking on his late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the comedian said: “Have any of you here ever hosted the Oscars before? Well, except for the end, it was a lot of fun.
“It was the weirdest TV finale since Lost.
“As I’m sure you’ve at least heard, La La Land was simultaneously somehow the biggest winner and loser last night. You know it’s a strange night when the word envelope is trending on Twitter.”
JIMMY KIMMEL
After showing a clip of a confusedlooking Beatty leaving Dunaway to announce the wrong winner, Kimmel said: “Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus. It was a slick move.”
Describing how the chaos unfolded, he said: “I’m sitting in the audience watching the speeches, the plan was for me to end the show from the audience in a seat next to Matt Damon.
“We’re sitting there and we notice some commotion going on and Matt says, ‘I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong’, ...So you just kind of figure, well, the host will go on stage and clear this up.
“And then I remember ‘Oh I’m the host, so no one else is going to go’, so I walk up the stairs.”
He continued: “It was kind of scary in a way, the producer of La La Land who thought he won, he was standing there holding an Oscar they were going to take away from him.
“My first instinct was to tell him to run, to take that Oscar and get out but he didn’t.
“I’m standing there like an idiot feeling bad for these guys but trying not to laugh to be honest and I see Denzel Washington in the front row trying to get my attention, he yells ‘Barry’.
“Eventually I figured out that Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, is standing behind me and Denzel wanted me to get him to the microphone to make a speech, which makes sense.
“Thank God Denzel was there to make sense.”
And then I remember ‘Oh I’m the host, so no one else is going to go’, so I walk up the stairs.