'La La Land' Mistakenly Awarded Best Picture Oscar But It Actually Belonged To 'Moonlight'

In a WTF moment to top all WTF moments, La La Land was mistakenly announced as having won Best Picture at the 89th Annual Academy Awards, but the honor actually belonged to Moonlight. The mix-up (to say the least) briefly plunged the ceremony into chaos, with people standing on the stage assuring the viewers at home that this wasn't a joke.

While presenting the award actor Warren Beatty paused for an inordinately long time over the words. He seemed to be doing something of a bit, playing off the fact that this was the category everyone was waiting for... but he was in fact confused, because the envelope in his hands read "Emma Stone, 'La La Land'" (Stone had just won the Best Actress category). Faye Dunaway eventually got annoyed with his slow delivery and announced the winner as La La Land. If you replay the video, you can hear Warren Beatty saying, “But it says Emma Stone."

After the film's title was read, the La La Land cast and filmmakers took the stage and began their acceptance speeches, as one does when they've just been announced as Best Picture winners.

The unfortunate duty of announcing the mistake to the world fell on La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, who was incredibly gracious.

According to the Academy librarians working backstage, this kind of a mix-up has never happened for the Best Picture category before.

And per a savvy Twitter user, it looks like Beatty really did have the wrong envelope:

The La La Land people handled it amazingly well, especially considering they'd already given their acceptance speeches.

And finally, the real question on all our minds:

Also, M. Night Shyamalan for the win:

Update [10:00 p.m.]:
Here's a look at what was happening backstage, from USA Today:

It still remains unclear how Warren Beatty got handed that second envelope, but surely more facts will have arisen by the morning.