Oscars 2017: PricewaterhouseCoopers admit fault for La La Land – Moonlight gaffe

There were probably many people out there who watched the entire Oscars ceremony looking for that one big TV moment. Hopefully, many of them didn’t turn the show off right before it happened. It seemed as though La La Land had won Best Picture per the announcement of Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty; however, the reality was that Moonlight actually had. Beatty had the envelope for Best Actress in his hand, and you could see briefly before Dunaway read the name that he knew something was off.

In the end, someone had to be deemed responsible, and clearly that someone in this case was accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are the people responsible for bringing in the results and preparing them. In a statement, here is what they had to say about the issue:

“We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture … The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”

Obviously, this moment had to be terribly embarrassing for the folks involved, especially everyone involved with La La Land. Yet, at the same time it did offer up a spice that was missing from most of the rest of the show. Jimmy Kimmel gave a solid performance as host, but there weren’t a whole lot of notable speakers as the majority of the nominees decided to be fairly straightforward in their approaches to acceptance speeches. There were still some powerful moments, but they were more scattered throughout the night.

You can see the full video of the incident, if you missed it, below. Kudos to everyone for handing this with as much grace as possible.

What do you think of what transpired on the show, and the way that everyone handled it in turn? Feel free to share some of your thoughts in the comments! (Photo: Oscars.)