In a stunning turn, “Moonlight” won the best picture Oscar after “La La Land” was incorrectly named. The “La La Land” team were in the process of giving thanks when it was announced that the wrong film had been read and that “Moonlight” was the real winner.
Emma Stone, Casey Affleck, Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis won acting awards. Barry Jenkins won the adapted screenplay award for Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Moonlight” and Kenneth Lonnergan for his original script, “Manchester by the Sea.”
As the “La La Land” cast was taking the stage to celebrate, a stagehand in the wings said, “Oh … Oh my god, he got the wrong envelope.” They walked back and forth repeating it.
Stagehands, actors, production crew and journalists were stunned. Oscars producer Michael De Luca was peering into his monitor, trying to figure it out. Champagne glasses sat on the table next to him. They had been poured moments earlier to celebrate a good show.
The academy doesn’t know what went wrong. Stage manager Gary Natoli came running past just now saying, “Warren is holding on to the envelope. He will not release it.”
When host Jimmy Kimmel returned from off stage, De Luca told the show host, “Thanks for covering, man.” And Kimmel responded, “Yeah, but no one is going to remember that now. I don’t know what happened. We will analyze every bit of it.”
Meanwhile John Legend mused, “One wishes it was the right card. One wishes.”
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