La La Land Incorrectly Announced, Moonlight Takes Home Award for Best Picture at 2017 Oscars

Announcers make mistake for most prestigious award of the night

By Kendall Fisher Feb 27, 2017 5:19 AMTags

Wait, did that just happen?

We all applauded upon hearing that La La Land had taken home the most prestigious award at the 2017 Oscars, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture...but then it didn't (insert a million question marks here).

While the cast and crew took to the stage to accept the award and give their speeches, they were interrupted by presenter Warren Beatty who said he had been handed the wrong envelope.

Moonlight was the actual winner for Best Picture.

La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz quickly took to the microphone and said, "Guys, I'm sorry. There's a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke. I'm afraid they read the wrong thing."

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Oscars 2017 Winners: The Complete List
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Everyone looked around confusedly before Horowitz held up the real envelope that, indeed, read Moonlight for Best Picture.

"I'm going to be really proud to hand this over to my friends at Moonlight," he added.

Kimmel came on stage to bring a little lightheartedness to the otherwise incredibly uncomfortable moment while Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Damien Chazelle and more made their way off stage.

"Guys. This is very unfortunate, what happened," he said, joking, "Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this."

Beatty then took the microphone to explain.

"I want to tell you what happened," he said. "I opened the envelope, and it said Emma Stone, La La Land. That's why I took such a long look at Faye [Dunaway] and at you, I wasn't trying to be funny."

Finally, after a couple more minutes of everyone—including all of you, all of us, the audience, the cast and the crew of both films and the millions of people watching the Oscars—getting themselves together, those who worked on Moonlight took the stage.

Director Barry Jenkins told the crowd, "Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true. But to hell with dreams! Because this is true...My love to La La Land. My love to everybody, man!"  

Producer Adele Romanski added, "I'm still not sure that this is true...This is very humbling. It's very humbling to be up here and I think, I hope even more than that that it's inspiring to people—little black boys and brown girls and other folks watching at home who feel marginalized—take some inspiration from seeing this beautiful group of artists held by this amazing talent, Barry Jenkins, accepting this top honor. Thank you."

Meanwhile, Stone and the rest of the cast and crew from La La Land made their way backstage, where the actress admitted they were still in shock.

"I f--king love Moonlight. God, I love Moonlight so much. I'm so excited for Moonlight," she said. "Of course it would have been a great thing for La La Land, but we are so excited for them."

She also noted that she was holding her Best Actress trophy as well as her Oscar card on-stage when she thought La La Land had won, so it's still unclear how the mishap occurred. 

"Everyone is in a state of confusion still," she admitted.

Obviously, Moonlight did not take the win very easily, going up against some fierce competition in the category, including La La Land and ArrivalFencesHacksaw RidgeHell or High WaterHidden FiguresManchester by the Sea and Lion.

For complete Oscars coverage, tune in to E! News at 7 p.m. and Fashion Police at 8 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27.