Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel has shared his side of the story, following the biggest blunder in Academy Awards history.
As we’re sure you’ve heard by now, Sunday night’s (26 February) ceremony ended with an almighty gaffe, which saw ‘La La Land’ announced as the winners of Best Picture, only for it to emerge halfway through their acceptance speech that the accolade actually belonged to ‘Moonlight’, due to an envelope mix-up.
Delivering his first talk show monologue since the incident, Jimmy has now attempted to clear up exactly what went down.
He joked: “Except for the end, it was a lot of fun. It was chugging along, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere it turned into one of those Maury Povich paternity test shows. It was the weirdest TV finale since ‘Lost’.”
Addressing what happened with presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, Jimmy continued: “In retrospect, we know that what happened was he was confused so he handed it to Faye and let her read it out. In other words, Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus.”
Jimmy then told the story from his perspective, revealing that he watched several producers from ‘La La Land’ give their speeches from the audience, as that was where his final live link was supposed to have been presented from.
Instead, this happened.
“We were sitting there, and we noticed some commotion going on, and Matt [Damon] says, ‘I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong’. So the stage manager is on - and the stage manager is never on camera, that’s very unusual.
“So, we’re sitting there and you kind of figure, ‘well, the host will go on stage and clear this up’. Then I remember… oh, I’m the host.”
After taking to the stage, Jimmy revealed that in his confused state, it was left to Denzel Washington to shout to him from the audience to let ‘Moonlight’ director Barry Jenkins make a speech, concluding: “Thank God Denzel was there to make sense.
“Then as I walked upstage people started speculating and asking if I’d pulled a prank... if I’d pulled a prank it wouldn’t just be the wrong winners in the envelope, it would be a Bed, Bath And Beyond coupon in there.”
Jimmy eventually clarified that the gaffe occurred because there were two cards for each category, while accounting firm PwC have already owned up to their part in the blunder.