TV

Jimmy Kimmel explains that crazy Oscars finish (and how the set collapsed)

Bill Keveney
USA TODAY
Jimmy Kimmel presided over the 89th Academy Awards with the wildest finish yet.

Jimmy Kimmel didn't have to dig too deeply to find monologue material Monday.

ABC's late-night host had plenty to discuss following his Sunday emcee gig at the network's Oscars, which featured a mind-blowing mistaken announcement of the Best Picture winner. Kimmel was on stage during the commotion, when producers of La La Land graciously turned over Oscars to those from the real winner: Moonlight.

The announcement by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, which resulted from an error by a PricewaterhouseCoopers manager overseeing the envelopes containing winner names, was the night's biggest story, but Kimmel also discussed a lesser-known fiasco, the collapse of the set during a rehearsal earlier Sunday.

"Have any of you here ever hosted the Oscars before?" he asked his audience at Jimmy Kimmel Live's regular taping Monday. "Well, except for the end — It was a lot of fun.  As I’m sure you’ve at least heard, La La Land was simultaneously the biggest winner and loser last night."

"In case you missed it, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway — it was the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde —  they played Bonnie and Clyde, so the Academy asked them to present Best Picture. The biggest award of the night.  It’s the last one they give out.  So they come out — with the envelope — and here’s where the story starts."

After showing a clip of the duo's announcement, he continued: "See what Warren did there?  He was confused — so he let her read the winner. In other words, Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus."

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Kimmel said he had planned to end the show sitting next to faux enemy Matt Damon. But as they sat together watching the La La Land speeches, Damon noticed the unusual activity on stage after the wrong winner was announced: "But 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.' Which is unusual — but you figure the host will go onstage and clear this up. And then I remember, 'Oh I’m the host.' "

He rejected speculation that he had been pulling 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."

As for the set accident, Kimmel said, "Oscar day was even more dramatic than Oscar night. During our rehearsal the day of the show, about halfway through, a huge part of the set collapsed. Two giant structures — one of them probably 25 or 30 feet tall — I stepped off stage – and about a minute later, they both came crashing down.  It scared the crap out of everybody. A lot of people thought a bomb went off. My wife shoved our daughter under a table to protect her. Somehow, even though we had like five cameras going, no one got this on video."

No one was hurt. But "I could have been the first person in history to both host and appear in the In Memoriam montage in the same show."