Banned from the Oscars

The president of the film academy said that the two accountants responsible for the best picture blunder at Sunday’s Academy Awards, will never work for the Oscars again. On Wednesday, Cheryl Boone Isaacs said that Brian Cullinan, the PwC representative responsible for handing over the errant envelope that led to La La Land being announced as the best picture mistakenly rather than Moonlight, was distracted backstage. He tweeted, and later deleted a photo of Emma Stone with her new Oscar, minutes before giving presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the wrong envelope for the best picture. “Cullinan and his colleague, Martha Ruiz, have been permanently removed from all film academy dealings,” Boone Isaacs said. Cullinan and Ruiz’s removal is the first major action that the Academy has taken to rectify its historic blunder, the like of which has never been seen before at the Oscars. PwC has taken full responsibility for the incident, issuing two statements after the ceremony, and promising an investigation to find out how such a mistake could have been made. The Academy issued an apology on Monday, after PwC’s initial statement. “We apologise to the entire cast and crew of La La Land and Moonlight, whose experience was profoundly altered by this error,” the Academy statement read. “We salute the tremendous grace they displayed under the circumstances. To everyone involved , including our presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the film-makers, and our fans watching worldwide , we apologise.”