“Series of mistakes” behind botched best picture announcement.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
An accounting firm responsible for tallying votes for Academy Award winners has taken the blame for Sunday night’s flubbed best picture announcement. PwC, formerly known as Price Waterhouse Coopers, released a statement on Monday night accepting responsibility for the “the series of mistakes and breaches of established protocols” that led to the much-talked-about snafu. Audiences were left stunned on Sunday night after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway named “La La Land” as the best picture winner, only to announce minutes later that “Moonlight” was the real winner. PwC explained the mistake by saying one of the firm’s partners, Brian Cullinan, had accidentally handed Beatty and Dunaway an envelope containing the best actress award, which went to Emma Stone from “La La Land” minutes earlier. The incident went down as one of the highlights of the evening – and one of the biggest slip-ups in Oscar history.
