Jimmy Kimmel's monologue on the latest episode of ABC's 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' last night practically wrote itself, thanks to the phenomenal faux-pas at the Oscars yesterday, after the Best Picture award was first mistakenly given to 'La La Land' before being given to actual winner 'Moonlight' .
Silencing speculations, the 49-year-old television host and comedian who hosted the ceremony told audiences that the mix up was 'the weirdest TV finale since Lost and that if was defintely 'not a prank'.
"Trust me — if I had pulled a prank in that situation, I wouldn’t have just had the wrong winner’s name in the envelope. When they opened it, there would have been a Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon inside. It was not a prank." Kimmel said on the show last night.
Kimmel had been sitting with 'faux enemy' Matt Damon while the last batch of the awards were announced. He allegedly had one last Damon-joke to crack before closing the ceremony. However, the comic could not proceed with his act.
The announcement for the Best Film category, easily the most prestigious of the Oscars, was made by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the duo famed for playing bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde.
According to him, soon after 'La La Land' was announced as the winner, Kimmel and Damon noticed confusion on-stage:
".. we’re sitting there — and we notice some commotion going on — and Matt (Damon) says, 'I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong.' Which is unusual — but you figure the host will go onstage and clear this up. And then I remember, 'Oh I’m the host.' " Kimmel said on TV.
After opening the evelope, Warren Beatty, who looked decidely confused, handed the envelope over to Dunaway, who went on to read out La La Land, something that he didn't miss.
"See what Warren did there? He was confused — so he let her read the winner. In other words, Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus." Kimmel joked.
The mishap has now been blamed on an error by a PricewaterhouseCoopers manager who was in-charge of the envelopes containing the names of winners.
“It was kind of scary, in a way, -- That was the producer of ‘La La Land’ who thought he won, standing there holding an Oscar they’re going to take away from him. My first instinct was to tell him to run. ‘Take the Oscar and get out!’ But he didn’t.” Kimmel admitted.
Commenting on the confusion that followed, Kimmel said,"I’m standing there like an idiot, feeling bad for these guys — but also trying really hard not to laugh, to be honest.”
The mishap on Oscar night, however, was not the only mishap during the 88th outing of the prestigious award ceremony.
According to the host, earlier, part of the set had collapsed on stage halfway through rehearsals for the ceremony.
"I stepped off stage.. and about a minute later.. two giant structures, one of them probably 25 or 30 feet tall .. came crashing down. " Kimmel told audiences, adding that the crash scared the 'crap out of everybody', with many thinking a bomb had gone off.
Feature Image Source: Reuters/Twitter