How did the biggest award show moment of 2017 go so wrong?

“Guys in headsets starting buzzing around. They took the envelope I had. It said ‘Emma Stone, La La Land’ on it. It was clear there was something wrong,” he told The Hollywood Reporter after the mix-up that dominated the ceremony.

“They started looking for the best picture envelope. Nobody knew where it was. Then it appeared. They opened it next to me and it said ‘Moonlight.’ And so I grabbed it. I had to fix the situation.”

The 2017 Academy Awards were moments away from finishing when the ceremony was rocked by arguably the biggest stuff-up in Oscars history: The wrong film had been awarded Best Picture.

Having given most of their impassioned thank you speeches, the cast and crew of La La Land were informed — live, on stage, in front of an audience of a billion or so people — that there had been a huge error. Moonlight was in fact the winner.

Actor and presenter Faye Dunaway, who read the incorrect winner out on stage, would not elaborate on what went wrong, telling media after the ceremony: “I’m not going to speak about it.”

Mr Horowitz has received praise for how he handled the situation, saying: “Look, we won six Oscars. The picture’s been a critical success, a financial success,” he said. “It’s been a wild ride and it ended in spectacular fashion.”

Moonlight filmmaker Barry Jenkins also tweeted “much respect” to the man who handed over the Oscar to him.

“I felt a million different things, but I did realize that whatever Jordan was going to say was going to be the truth because he looked over and I just wanted to hug him,” he said.

Jordan Horowitz. Wow. I'm slipping slowly into reflection, perspective. Much respect to that dude

— Barry Jenkins (@BandryBarry) February 27, 2017

Best actor winner Mahershala Ali said he was thrown by the moment, which made it difficult to enjoy.

“I didn’t want to go up there and take anything from somebody. It’s very hard to feel joy in a moment like that,” though he added, “I feel very fortunate for all of us to have walked away with the best picture award. It’s pretty remarkable.”

Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has issued a statement apologising to the actors, producers, presenters and viewers for the mistake.

“The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category evenlope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred,” the company said.

“We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”

pic.twitter.com/oGJkXytnQ2

— PwC LLP (@PwC_LLP) February 27, 2017

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