Here's why everyone was so confused by that WTF Oscar moment
Now that we've had a few minutes to breathe, let's unravel how one of the weirdest moments in awards show history actually went down.
It started, as trouble often does, with Bonnie and Clyde -- Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, the stars of the classic film, who had the honor of giving the night's biggest award away.
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Beatty had the wrong envelope. He was understandably pretty confused, so he stalled as much as he possibly could before letting Dunaway figure out what to do, because delegating unpleasant tasks is the easiest choice.
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She announced La La Land as the winner, because, well, the name of that film was certainly on the card!
But La La Land lost, dudes.
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Jordan Horowitz, a producer for La La Land showed the real card. "There's a mistake. Moonlight, you won best picture." Oops!
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He showed the receipts
"This is not a joke," he repeated over and over again, which was a good call since Jimmy Kimmel was standing right there.
Beatty decided to to set the record straight himself.
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"I opened the envelope and it said, Emma Stone, La La Land," explained the actor. "That's why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny."
Emma Stone made everything a little more confusing.
"I was also holding my Best Actress in a leading role card the whole time so whatever stuff you're hearing..." Stone told reporters in the press room after the madness went down. "I don't mean to start stuff."
But there are actually two of each winning envelope.
Brian Cullinan and Martha L. Ruiz, accountants from Price Waterhouse Cooper -- the firm that has been handling the the ballots for 83 years -- were the only people who know who the winners are ahead of time. They each transport a set of the envelopes in a secure briefcase to the awards show.
"From a security perspective, we double up everything," Cullinan told Market Watch. "That’s why there's two of us. We have two briefcases, that are identical, and we have two entire sets of winning envelopes."
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So it probably wasn't sabotage, but you never know. Here's to the ones that scheme.
There is kind of a precedent for this.
This hasn't quite happened before, but an incident at the Academy Awards back in 1993 when Marisa Tomei took home Best Actress has been the subject of Hollywood folklore for years.
Some claim that Tomei wasn't actually supposed to win the award, but the presenter, Jack Palance, couldn't read the card and simply announced her name because it was the first one that came to mind. Wacky!
That's why the Academy now insists that two representatives from Price Waterhouse Cooper are at the wings to make sure no one actually goes home with an Oscar they weren't supposed to win.
Sorry, dreamers. Moonlight won fair and square.
Topics Oscars
Tricia Gilbride was a Reporter for Mashable Watercooler. Tricia focused on the intersection of celebrity culture and the Internet. Previously, she worked as a fashion writer and a social media manager. She also edits Women-Artists.org, a blog and annual print publication, and looks exactly like her cat.
