Miami's 'Moonlight' Wins Best Picture After Wrong Winner Announced

MIAMI, FL — Miami's "Moonlight" won best picture at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday after presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly announced the wrong winner.

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"I knew I would screw this show up," host Jimmy Kimmel deadpanned in closing the broadcast. "I promise I'll never come back."

See Patch's complete coverage of the 89th Academy Awards from Hollywood.

As Patch reported on Friday, there are two duplicate sets of winning envelopes carried into the Dolby Theater and held by balloting co-leaders Brian Cullinan and Martha L. Ruiz from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“One stands stage left and one stands stage right,” Megan DiSciullo of PricewaterhouseCoopers told Patch, adding that presenters take their envelopes from either Cullinan or Ruiz depending on which side of the stage they enter from. “They give it to the presenters who then go out and announce the winners,” she said.

In this case, it was Cullinan who handed the wrong envelope to the presenters, according to Variety, quoting Tim Ryan, the accounting firm’s U.S. chairman and senior partner. Cullinan pulled the Best Actress envelope that was in a “backup” pile and handed it to Warren Beatty. “There’s a stack for the backups and the ones that are not the backups and he took from the wrong stack,” Ryan explained.

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Miamians took to Twitter almost immediately.

The School Board of Miami-Dade County recently honored current and former students who participated in making “Moonlight,” which chronicles the life of a young black male to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in Liberty City.

“Moonlight” was set and filmed in Miami by Miami-Dade County Public Schools alumni Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney with co-producer Andrew Hevia.

The movie featured Norland Middle School theater students Alex Hibbert and Jaden Piner as well as teacher Tanisha Cidel.

In introducing the measure, Board Member Steve Gallon III said he hopes the film will be an inspiration to other Miami students.

"I am pleased to bring this item forward to commend our present and former students and promote increased opportunities for students in our district to pursue their dreams, passions, and life’s work through diverse educational pathways afforded through the arts," said Gallon.

Students and alumni are honored for their roles in creating, producing and performing in the film, “Moonlight.” Photo courtesy Miami-Dade County Public Schools.