Social media takes role as main suspect after envelope blunder at awards show

LOS ANGELES - An accountant for the Academy Awards botched the meticulous procedure for announcing the Oscar for best picture when he handed victory to La La Land before declaring Moonlight the real winner, PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Monday.

Accountant Brian Cullinan, who media reports said had been tweeting backstage shortly before, gave presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for the movie industry's top award on Sunday, the accounting firm said in a statement.

In a gaffe that stunned the Dolby Theatre crowd in Hollywood and a television audience worldwide, "Cullinan mistakenly handed the backup envelope for Actress in a Leading Role instead of the envelope for Best Picture" to Beatty and Dunaway, PwC said.

"Once the error occurred, protocols for correcting it were not followed through quickly enough by Mr. Cullinan or his partner."

The Wall Street Journal and celebrity website TMZ.com reported that Cullinan had posted a backstage photo of actress Emma Stone on social network Twitter minutes before the mix-up.

The photo, from Cullinan's Twitter account, was later deleted but was still viewable on Monday on a cached archive of the page. Cullinan could not immediately be reached for comment.

The mistake was not rectified until the La La Land cast and producers were on stage giving their acceptance speeches. It was left to the musical's producer, Jordan Horowitz, to put things right.

"Guys, guys, I'm sorry. No. There's a mistake," Horowitz said. "Moonlight, you guys won best picture. This is not a joke."

PwC said it took full responsibility and apologized to the casts and crews of La La Land and Moonlight.

"We sincerely apologize to Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, (host) Jimmy Kimmel, (broadcaster) ABC, and the Academy, none of whom was at fault for last night's errors," it said in its statement.

An embarrassed Beatty carried the envelope to the glitzy Governor's Ball after the show, with the writing clearly saying "actress in a leading role." La La Land star Stone had been awarded that Oscar moments before.

"Except for the end, it was fun," comedian Kimmel said on Monday, referring to the Oscar show he hosted.

"You know it's a strange night when the word 'envelope' is trending on Twitter," he said on his ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Brand management experts said it could take years for PwC to recover.

"This is not advanced math. PwC had to get the right name in the right envelope and get it to the right person," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, calling the blunder a "bit of a branding tragedy."

The Moonlight filmmakers were gracious about the error.

Director Barry Jenkins told reporters backstage that he received no immediate explanation for the mix-up, though "it made a very special feeling even more special, but not in the way I expected."

Jenkins added, "Please write this down: The folks from La La Land were so gracious."

Despite the dramatic finale, the awards ceremony failed to grab an audience.

The show brought in 32.9 million viewers in the United States on Sunday night, down 4.4 percent from the 34.4 million audience a year earlier, the ABC Network said on Monday in a statement.

That was the second lowest level in Oscar history and the smallest audience since 2008, according to ratings data from Nielsen.

The record TV audience came in 1998, when 55 million viewers in the US watched Titanic win Best Picture.

Reuters - Xinhua