No surprise here: Jimmy Kimmel had a lot of material for his late-night monologue on Monday.
The Oscars host returned to Jimmy Kimmel Live! yesterday to share his version of the chaos that ensued when presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly announced La La Land as the winner of Best Picture instead of Moonlight.
According to Kimmel, he was as taken aback as everyone else.
"Except for the end, it was a lot of fun," he quipped to his TV audience. "It went very well, we were chugging along, and all of a sudden we turned into one of those Maury Povich paternity test shows. It was the weirdest TV finale since Lost.
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"As I’m sure you’ve at least heard, La La Land was simultaneously, somehow, the biggest winner and loser last night," he continued. "You know it’s a strange night when the word 'envelope' is trending on Twitter."
Kimmel went on to explain the SNAFU to those cave-dwellers who hadn't heard about what happened. He showed a clip of Beatty handing Dunaway the envelope to make the announcement.
"In retrospect, now we know what Warren did," Kimmel pointed out. "He was confused, so he let Faye read the winner. In other words, Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus. It was a very slick move."
He added that he was sitting next to Matt Damon in the audience as the La La Land team made their way to the stage.
"Make no mistake," Kimmel stopped to clarify, "whatever confusion there was about who won? Matt Damon lost. He was a loser."
Damon may be a "loser," but he's also quicker on the take.
"We're sitting there and we notice some commotion going on and Matt says, 'I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong,'" he revealed. "Because the stage manager was on, and the stage manager is never [usually] on camera. It's very unusual. So we're sitting there and you just kind of figure, 'Well, the host will go onstage and clear this up.' And then I remember, 'Oh! I’m the host!'"
As we all saw, "mass confusion" took over.
"I'm standing there like an idiot, feeling bad for these guys, but also trying really hard not to laugh, to be honest," Kimmel said.
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Luckily, Denzel Washington was there to save the day. According to Kimmel, he noticed Washington gesturing at him and saying "Barry." Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, was standing behind Kimmel, who quickly acted on Washington's suggestion to let him step up and give a speech.
"Thank God Denzel was there to make sense," he said.
Long story short, it wasn't a prank, it wasn't Warren Beatty's fault, and we should all follow Faye Dunaway's example: When the going gets tough, split.
Watch Kimmel's explanation below.