It seems like we now know how the wrong Oscar envelope got into Warren Beatty's hands

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February 27, 2017 10:12 PM

The Wall Street Journal reports that a person from the company in charge of the Oscar envelopes handed out the wrong one for best picture.

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One of the people in charge of handing out the winning envelopes to presenters at the Oscars on Sunday night may have gotten a little starstruck behind the scenes, possibly causing the worst mistake in Oscar history that's being called #envelopegate.

The Wall Street Journal reports that according to sources close to the situation, PricewaterhouseCoopers managing partner Brian Cullinan was tweeting backstage at the Oscars minutes before the infamous gaffe that led to presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presenting the best picture category with the wrong envelope.

PwC is the company that audits the Oscar voting and handles the envelopes.

Cullinan was one of two PwC accountants holding envelopes with the names of Oscar winners. He tweeted “Best Actress Emma Stone backstage! #PWC” along with a photo of the actress at 9:05 p.m. PST. That was about three minutes before Beatty and Dunaway went onstage to present the award for best picture.

The tweet has since been deleted, but The Journal has a screenshot of it.

Cullinan was reportedly supposed to give Beatty and Dunaway the envelope containing the name of the best-picture winner, but the acting legends were given a duplicate copy of the envelope containing Stone’s name as best actress.

As a result, Dunaway mistakenly named “La La Land" as best picture. After the mixup, "Moonlight" rightfully accepted the award.

PwC issued a statement late Sunday night saying it was "currently investigating" the matter. The company has watched over Oscar voting for the past 83 years.

PwC and Cullinan did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment about The Journal's reporting.

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