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Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz

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Oddity

The Resume

    Accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
    ’Ballot handlers’ for the 89th Academy Awards (February 26, 2017)
    Largely responsible for ‘La La Land’ mistakenly being announced as Best Picture instead of ‘Moonlight’

Why they might be annoying:

    Cullinan gave presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway a duplicate ‘Best Actress’ envelope (containing a card reading, ‘Emma Stone, La La Land’) instead of the Best Picture envelope.
    In an interview with Huffington Post before the ceremony, Cullinan said there was no specific protocol for dealing with a wrong winner being announced, but claimed ‘We would make sure the correct person was known very quickly.’
    Instead , it took more than a minute for either he or Ruiz to react, by which point the producers of ‘La La Land’ were on stage making their acceptance speeches.
    They were reluctant to intervene, with Oscar stage manager Gary Natoli saying, ‘We had to push them onstage, which was just shocking to me.’
    Although they were instructed not to use social media during the Oscarcast, Cullinan tweeted a picture of Emma Stone a few moments before handing out the wrong envelope.
    They were banned from participating in future Oscar ceremonies.

Why they might not be annoying:

    They kept their jobs as accountants at PwC.
    Bodyguards had to be hired to protect them after personal information and pictures of their houses were posted on the internet.
    Rob Lowe can rest easier now that his duet with Snow White has been bumped to #2 on the list of most embarrassing Oscar moments.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 483 Votes: 61.49% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 100 Votes: 61.00% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 302 Votes: 90.40% Annoying