Everyone — including Horowitz,
Berger and Beatty — is watching
Natoli as he hunts the stage for
the correct envelope. An unaware
Platt finishes his speech and
insists Berger give his. Berger hes-
itantly steps up to the mic while
Cullinan, behind him, appears
to realize what he has done and
mouths, “Shit.”
HOROWITZ I remember looking
over at Warren and he’s holding
another envelope, and he says,
“This is the [actual] envelope!” And
then the stage manager goes over
to him, and I follow behind, and
he opens it and sees it’s the best
picture card. It says “Moonlight.”Berger, looking dejected, closes
by saying, “We lost, by the way.”
Two minutes and 23 seconds
after Dunaway had declared that
La La Land was the best pictureup onstage and grabbed the
envelope out of my hand — I was
holding the envelope for the score
award [one of two Oscars he won
that night]. When he took it I said,
“That’s my envelope.” And he said,
“I need all the envelopes!”
HOROWITZ That person was going
around saying, “Where’s the enve-
lope? Where’s the envelope?!” And
I said, “I have the envelope.” This
was while Marc was speaking. He
came over to me, opened the enve-
lope and it said Emma’s name on
it. I knew Emma had her envelope
because I’d seen it. I remember
thinking that someone had some-
how, like, stopped time.
LEGEND Then people start whis-
pering, “Moonlight won.” For some
reason, I thought they were say-
ing it was a tie between Moonlight
and La La Land and we were shar-
ing the award.
TODD I put my headset on and I
heard Glenn, the director, say-
ing forcefully, “They got the
wrong envelope! It’s not the right
winner!”
MELIDONIAN I said “It’s OK, we’ll
fix it.” Because I’m thinking it’s a
misspelling on the graphics.
TODD I said, “Oh, my God, we’re
having the Steve Harvey Oscars!”
MELIDONIAN We’re all like, “Fuck!”
KIMMEL I said to Matt [Damon],
“What’s happening up there?” He
said, “I think they announced the
wrong winner.” I started laugh-
ing because that was ridiculous.
MAHERSHALA ALI, Actor, Moonlight
I looked up on the monitor.
When I saw that people at home
could see security onstage, I liter-
ally said, “Oh. We won.” I don’t
know what made me think that.
Honestly, I can’t tell you.
MELIDONIAN I remember saying,
“Oh my God, I have to get on that
stage. I have to do something.”
KIMMEL Then it hit me that I was
the only one wearing a micro-
phone, and I should probably go
up there to sort it out.Among those who follow Natoli
onto the stage, in full view of the
audience and TV cameras, are
Cullinan, Ruiz and Melidonian.
DAVID OYELOWO, Actor and presenter
When [Cullinan] came on, he
looked like Matt Damon, so I
thought it was all part of Jimmy
Kimmel’s bit.
KIMMEL They do look a lot alike.
MELIDONIAN Brian was just kind
of staring through me, and
I remember tapping him and
saying, “Hey, Brian — what’s
going on?!” Remember, we’re on
air! And he was not responsive.
So then I approached Gary, the
stage manager, and he said
to me, “Go to Warren and get
the envelope.”
TODD It was disappointing
that the accountants froze and
didn’t do any of the protocols,
but I’m not surprised. Gary
was more equipped to deal with
the problem.
WEISS I couldn’t be more proud
about how quickly Gary acted.
MELIDONIAN I approached
Mr. Beatty and asked for the
envelope. He said, “You may see
the envelope. You may not have
the envelope.” The envelope clearly
said, “Emma Stone, La La Land.”
And I’m thinking, “Oh God. How
did this happen?!”
TODD I wasn’t upset. I was just
captivated by it. It was like bad
reality TV.
WEISS Instinctually, when some-
thing’s not going as you expected,
your years of television experi-
ence say, “Go wide. Cover up.” But
my instinct this time said,
“You need to do the opposite.”19:09 P.M. Berger (center) is the
last La La Land producer to give an
acceptance speech. While he is
speaking (1), stage manager Natoli
(wearing headset) searches
for a “Best Picture” envelope to
confirm which film actually won.
Here, Natoli is surrounded by
(from left) Hurwitz, Horowitz,
Stone, executive producer Mike
Jackson, Beatty, Cullinan and
Ruiz. Seconds later, Berger ends
his speech and Horowitz steps
up to the mic. (2) “There’s a
mistake. Moonlight — you guys won
best picture. This is not a joke.”
He then grabs, from Beatty, the card
with “Moonlight” on it, holds it up
and says, “Moonlight, best picture.”JORDAN HOROWITZ, La La Landproducer
“I remember the Oscar
being really heavy. Then it got
even heavier.”2Oscar winner, Horowitz jumps
back to the mic — just in front of
Beatty — and says, “Guys, guys,
I’m sorry, no. There’s a mistake.
Moonlight — you guys won best
picture. This is not a joke. Come
up here.”
AIZENBERG I just started scream-
ing, “What the fuck is going on?!”
We were all in shock. We started
hugging each other, but we were
just stunned.
ANNETTE BENING, Actress, wife of
Warren Beatty I was at home
watching the show with my
daughter. It was sort of like
a dream, and my daughter and
I both just started screaming,
ba sica l ly. We were st u n ned.
ALI Probably the most awkward
moment in Oscars history.
TEIGEN I was laughing hysteri-
cally because I just thought it
was the funniest thing.MARA BUXBAUM, Publicist
“Warren’s really smart. He would
not let go of the envelopes.”