Accounting firm says Oscar gaffe caused by its errors
Partner mistakenly handed presenters Beatty and Dunaway wrong envelope
LOS ANGELES — The accounting firm responsible for the integrity of the Academy Awards said Monday that its staffers did not move quickly enough to correct the biggest error in Oscars history — the mistaken announcement of the best picture winner.
PwC, formerly Price Waterhouse Coopers, wrote in a statement that several mistakes were made and two of its partners assigned to the prestigious awards show did not act quickly enough when La La Land was mistakenly announced as the best picture winner. Three of the film’s producers spoke before the actual winner, the coming-ofage drama Moonlight, was announced.
“PwC takes full responsibility for the series of mistakes and breaches of established protocols during last night’s Oscars,” PwC wrote. It said its partner, Brian Cullinan, mistakenly handed presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway an envelope containing the winner of the best actress award.
The firm, which has handled Oscar winner announcements for eight decades, apologized to Beatty, Dunaway, the cast and crew of La La Land and Moonlight, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and host Jimmy Kimmel. “We wish to extend our deepest gratitude to each of them for the graciousness they displayed during such a difficult moment,” the statement said.
The statement came after nearly a day of speculation about how the worst gaffe in Oscars history unfolded. The fiasco launched countless punchlines, memes and a probe of what went wrong. The mystery deepened Monday afternoon after The Wall Street Journal reported that Cullinan tweeted a behind-the-scenes photo of winner Emma Stone holding her statuette. “Best Actress Emma Stone backstage!” the tweet read.
The tweet, sent moments before the best picture announcement, raised the question of whether the accountant was distracted from the task at hand. Although the tweet was deleted from the social media site, a copy of it was kept by Google and available through a cache page.
On paper, the process for announcing Oscars winners seems straightforward. Cullinan and PwC colleague Martha Ruiz toted briefcases to the awards via the red carpet, each holding an identical set of envelopes for the show’s 24 categories.
During the telecast, the accountants were stationed in the Dolby Theatre wings, one stage left and one stage right, to give presenters their category’s envelope before they went on stage. Most presenters entered stage right, where Cullinan was posted and where he handed Beatty and Dunaway the errant envelope. Yet the previous award, best actress, had been presented by Leonardo DiCaprio, who entered stage left and received the envelope from Ruiz. That left a duplicate, unopened envelope for best actress at stage right.
“It’s a simple process, if a painstaking one,” said Dan Lyle, who had Oscar duties for Price Waterhouse in the 1980s and ’90s. Accountants attended rehearsals to learn whether presenters would enter from right or left. But given the chance of last-minute changes, both accountants had a full set of envelopes.