How an Oscars rule led to this year's massive best picture screw-up
But after the madness of trying to sort out that it was "Moonlight" that actually won best picture, not "La La Land," the big question around all the after-parties was how could Beatty and fellow presenter Faye Dunaway have been given the envelope for best lead actress, which went to Emma Stone, as that award had already been given out?
Beatty said onstage that the card he was given said Emma Stone. And screenshots from the telecast prove that he's right, as this tweet shows:
But to thicken the plot even more, Stone told the press room after the madness that she was holding onto the best actress envelope while onstage with the "La La Land" cast and producers when they thought they won.
It turns out, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm in charge of vote counting for the Oscars, show up on Oscar night with two sets of winning envelopes. Employees of the firm stand on opposite sides of the stage and are in charge of handing the sealed envelopes to the presenters before they go out to name the winner.
So it seems Leonardo DiCaprio, who presented the Oscar to Stone for best actress, walked onstage from a different side than Beatty and Dunaway did, leading to the duplicate being used.
Why the need for duplicates? In an interview with MarketWatch before the Oscars, Brian Cullinan, one of the PwC accountants in charge of Sunday's winning envelopes, said it's largely to make sure Los Angeles traffic doesn't play a factor in getting the envelopes to the ceremony.
You better believe there's going to be some tweaking done to the process.
Deadline is reporting that one of the accountants told a stage manager about the error, and that person then went onstage with the correct card.
PwC issued a statement late last night saying that it is "currently investigating how this could have happened."