Brian Cullinan, PricewaterhouseCoopers Associate, Reportedly Responsible For Oscars Best Picture Screw Up

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy firm responsible for all voting and envelopes at the Academy Awards, took full responsibility for the Best Picture mix up and cited human error.

PWC ASSOCIATE BRIAN CULLINAN REPORTEDLY RESPONSIBLE

The Oscars ran smoothly until the last category, when presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway erroneously declared La La Land the Best Picture winner, when the honor actually belonged to Moonlight. The flub was due to the wrong envelope being handed to Beatty as he approached the stage.

PwC explains that there are two sets of envelopes, one on each side of the stage because presenters enter the stage from both sides. Beatty was mistakenly handed the envelope with the Best Actress winner — Emma Stone for La La Land.

PwC released a statement on Monday explaining their regrets that the incident occurred. It has since come out that the blame rests on PwC associate Brian Cullinan, who was responsible to passing out winning envelopes on the side of the stage that Beatty entered on.

“We clearly made a mistake and once the mistake was made we corrected it and owned up to it,” said PwC US Chairman Tim Ryan. “[Cullinan] feels very, very terrible and horrible. He is very upset about this mistake. And it is also my mistake, our mistake, and we all feel very bad.”

Apparently Cullinan posted a photo to Twitter of Stone with her Oscar, and as that was the award just before Best Picture, it could be that Cullinan was distracted when Beatty approached. That post and all of his backstage tweets have since been deleted, and he has not made any social media posts since.