Accountant who caused epic Oscars flub was told not to tweet during ceremony, but he did anyway

THE man responsible for the biggest stuff up in Oscars history was warned not to tweet during the ceremony, but he did anyway.

Brian Cullinan and his colleague Martha L. Ruiz at the Oscars, before everything went spectacularly wrong. Picture: AFP/Valerie Macon

HE was warned not to tweet during the show.

The bonehead Oscars bean counter who was busy tweeting during Sunday’s big show — and ended up handing the wrong envelope to presenter Warren Beatty — asked beforehand if he could post to social media, sources said.

Seems Brian Cullinan was too busy tweeting at the Oscars rather than focusing on what envelope he was giving out. Picture: SplashNews

But Academy Awards bigwigs baulked, warning the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant, Brian Cullinan, that he had to stay offline to focus on his sole task that night — making sure each envelope got in the right hands, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Brian was asked not to tweet or use social media during the show,’’ a source said, according to People magazine.

“He was fine to tweet before he arrived at the red carpet, but once he was under the auspices of the Oscar-night job, that was to be his only focus.’’

Inside the Oscars ceremony

But the top tax accountant apparently didn’t heed the directive. He tweeted numerous times during the LA awards ceremony, including just three minutes before the debacle, the Journal said.

Accountants Brian Cullinan (centre) and Martha Ruiz (red dress) run onstage after La La Land was incorrectly named Best Picture. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP

His last tweet was a photo of Best Actress winner Emma Stone (since deleted).

Soon after, Cullinan, 57, handed Beatty a duplicate envelope for Best Actress — the award Stone had just won — instead of the correct one for Best Picture. That led to a series of missteps that ended with the wrong winner, La La Land, being announced as Best Picture, instead of the real winner, Moonlight.

Star style on the red carpet

“Tweeting right before the Best Picture category was announced was not something that should have happened,” the source told People.

Still, Cullinan “doesn’t believe that a tweet caused the error,’’ a PwC honcho told The Wall Street Journal.

Either way, he feels “horrible, absolutely horrible,’’ said Tim Ryan, the US chairman of PwC.

The Academy is now reviewing its decades-long relationship with PwC because of the flub, People said.

Sources say Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were “bickering” during rehearsals over who would read the winner, before it all went wrong. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP

Meanwhile, reports have surfaced saying the ongoing feud between Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway may have helped bungle the Best Picture presentation.

A source told the New York Post that Beatty was not pleased to be presenting with Dunaway in the first place, and that “he refused to let his rehearsal be filmed, which they needed to block out the entire show properly.”

During the rehearsals, both Dunaway and Beatty wanted to announce the winner and bickered over it, the source said.

“It is no secret that there is no love lost there,” continued the insider. “Both nearly baulked at doing it together at all.”

Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz with US TV personality Michael Strahan on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Picture: Twitter

In the end, Beatty was tasked with opening the card (the wrong one, as it turned out), and then duly passed it to Dunaway to read out the wrong winner, La La Land. The move sparked some speculation that Beatty set Dunaway up to read out the incorrect film.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post

Originally published as Accountant who caused epic Oscars flub was told not to tweet during ceremony, but he did anyway