The ‘La La Land’ Producer Who Handled the Biggest Oscar Gaffe in History Like a Champ

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Editor

The 89th Oscars definitely ended with a bang this past Sunday night and the main man at the center of one of the biggest Academy award flubs in history is “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz.

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Originally ‘La La Land’ was named best picture of the year at the star studded show. At least that is what the audience, viewers and the cast and crew of the romantic drama believed until everyone including those on stage realized that the presenters of the award, Warren Beatty and actress Faye Dunaway had made an awful mistake on stage and read the wrong card.

After two painful minutes and three acceptance speeches, it finally became apparent that there was a mistake. They thought they had just won the most coveted Oscar, so the producers were ecstatic. The low after such an enormous high would be a lot for anyone to handle – but Horowitz handled it like a champ. That moment could’ve been handled a million ways, but it was clear he wanted to make sure the real winners were able to celebrate their rightful moment properly.

Every year, the Oscars receives two envelopes with the winners names. The winner of the award gets one when they get their gold statue and the second one is kept backstage. Somehow Beatty got the one backstage for Best Actress, who was Emma Stone for her role as Mia in “La La Land.”

So when Beatty pulled out the envelope and took a brief pause before reading the award winner for best picture, it was because Emma Stone and “La La Land” was on the card instead of the real winner which happened to be “Moonlight,” a coming of age film about an African American boy in Miami.

Looking back at the original clip, it looks like Beatty might have realized that “La La Land” wasn’t the winner and that could arguably by why, the 79-year-old actor turned to Dunaway to confirm who the winner of the award was. But Dunaway acted as if nothing seemed odd and she read out “La La Land.”

After that, in award show fashion, the whole cast and crew from “La La Land” walked on stage and within two minutes of Horowitz walking to the mic, the actors were bombarded with Beatty, Dunaway and host Jimmy Kimmel. All three came back to the stage to correct the mistake that was just made.

As they all stood there trying to figure out what to do, 36-year-old Horowitz immediately went to the mic after grabbing the new envelope and announced the real winner, “Moonlight.”

Saying with the new envelope in hand, “Guys, guys, no, I’m sorry there’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture.”

“I’m going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from Moonlight.”

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Horowitz’s quick reaction has gotten a lot of heat from the internet but also some applause.

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While other social media users are just plain upset over how Beatty was treated on stage after the Oscars gaffe.

The other people getting heat include PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and of course the academy. PwC has taken full responsibility for the “mistakes” that happened during the award show and so does the Oscars.

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