The accountancy firm in charge of the Oscars results has apologised after Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the wrong results card when announcing the Best Picture award and incorrectly announced La La Land as the winner rather than Moonlight.
The apology came in statement released by accounting firm PwC, formerly Price Waterhouse Coopers, hours after the Academy Awards ended on Sunday night.
The statement said: 'We sincerely apologise to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture.
'The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.'
In a heart-stopping moment, the stars and producers of La La Land were stopped midway through their acceptance speeches and forced to hand their trophies to the stars of Moonlight after their film was announced as Best Picture in one of the biggest blunders in Oscar history.
Barry Jenkins, foreground, and the Moonlight cast accept the award for Best Picture.
The terrible end to an otherwise triumphant show left the audience gasping in horror as Beatty revealed he had incorrectly read La La Land as the winner.
As the La La Land cast were walking on stage to accept the accolade, a stagehand standing in the wings could be heard saying 'Oh ... Oh my god, he got the wrong envelope' and walking back and forth, according to the LA Times.
While still on stage, Beatty blamed the epic mishap on being given the wrong envelope, saying he had seen the name Emma Stone from 'La La Land' when he opened his envelope.
'I want to tell you what happened I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, La La Land and that is why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny. This is Moonlight for best picture,' Beatty told the shocked crowd as he explained the blunder.
An investigation is continuing into how La La Land was wrongly named Best Picture rather than the triumphant Moonlight.
Fred Berger, producer of La La Land, foreground centre, gives his acceptance speech. Photos: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Only two people know the Oscars winners list and supervise the counting procedures – PwC tax adviser Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan an accountant who is the chairman of PwC's US board.
Just days before the showcase event, they told the Huffington Post that they were unsure of the exact procedure in the event that the wrong actor or film was named as a winner in any given category since such a mistake had never been made in the awards' 88-year history.
Cullinan and Ruiz each carry a suitcase containing a copy of the winning envelope for all the categories – meaning there are two envelopes for each award.
The pair stand on opposite sides backstage and memorize the winners to avoid having to write them down and have revealed in the past how they carry out rigorous checks to ensure they have stuffed the envelopes correctly.
It is believed Ruiz and Cullinan are ordered to destroy the duplicate cards as the presentation goes on, so by the time Best Picture is awarded, the only envelopes left are the two for Best Picture, according to Free Press.
When Beatty and Dunaway took the stage to announce the Best Picture award, Cullinan and Ruiz realised that they still had two best picture envelopes, meaning that the envelope taken on stage was a duplicate for an award that had already been announced.
Only 22 people have ever accomplished this feat. Now, Viola Davis joins the club https://t.co/1k1ag9KqSR
— The Independent (@Independent) February 27, 2017
It is unknown why there was still a Best Actress duplicate available when Beatty walked on stage.
Executives from PwC immediately realised there was a problem, but they were too late to rectify the mistake as Dunaway read out the name La La Land from a card that was meant to be for the Best Actress award, which Emma Stone won for her role in the film earlier in the night.
After the officials realized what had happened, they tried to get on stage immediately. But the news was broken to the La La Land cast and crew after they had started their acceptance speeches.
🏆 AND THE WINNER ISN'T the #Oscars
MAJOR #Oscarfail leaves me 😂😂😂😂😂
CHOKING on #EpicFail👉 WRONG ENVELOPE
THAT'S KARMA 4 @POTUS #OscarBash pic.twitter.com/87Pvc0VE0u
— ☆TRUMP☆CHICK☆ (@JustMy_NameHere) February 27, 2017
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz returned to the microphone after being told about the mix up and said 'Moonlight won Best Picture' and insisting that 'this is not a joke'.
Just seconds before, confusion was etched across Beatty's face after he opened the envelope. He took a second glance inside the winner's envelope before showing it to Dunaway who mistakenly thought he was asking her to read out La La Land.
'It's one of the strangest things that's ever happened to me,' Beatty said backstage. 'Thank God there were two of us up there,' Dunaway responded.
The actress then asked Beatty, 'Who else should I tell?'
'Everybody,' he said.
At that point, a security guard tried to take the real envelope and Beatty said, 'Security is not getting this. I'm giving it to (Moonlight director) Barry Jenkins at a later time.' Beatty also refused to show it to anyone else.
ABC News, tweeting about the ceremony broadcast on its network, said the envelope held by Beatty read, 'Actress in a leading role.' A close-up photo of Beatty onstage verified that.
PwC has counted votes and provides winner envelopes for the Oscars and has done so for more than 80 years.
This is the first time in Oscar history that the wrong envelope had been opened while an award was being announced.
Host Jimmy Kimmel came forward to inform the cast that Moonlight had indeed won, showing the inside of the envelope as proof.
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz immediately called up the producers of Moonlight and graciously passed his statue over.
'I knew I would screw this up,' Kimmel, a first-time host, joked. 'I promise to never come back.'
Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said Academy officials met with PriceWaterhouseCooper to figure out exactly what had happened when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given a duplicate envelope containing Emma Stone's best actress win.
Moonlight's director Barry Jenkins told the crowd: 'Very clearly even in my dreams this can't be true. But to hell with it because this is true. It's true, it's not fake.'
Even though it wasn't strictly speaking Beatty's fault, he exited the Dolby Theatre through a back exit to avoid press.
He later told the Daily Mail the reason he paused for so long was because he knew there was a problem.