Shirley MacLaine on Younger Brother Warren Beatty’s Oscar Flub: ‘We’re All Processing the Horror of It’

Jodi Guglielmi
Updated

Shirley MacLaine is standing by her younger brother Warren Beatty following Sunday night’s Oscar fiasco.

MacLaine, 82, was in the audience when Beatty and Faye Dunaway incorrectly declared La La Land the winner of the Best Picture prize instead of Moonlight after the actor was handed the wrong envelope.

“I think we’re all processing the horror of it,” MacLaine told USA TODAY. “I’m still dealing with it.”

MacLaine, who presented the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the ceremony, said she felt her brother’s pain following the incident.

“I’m concerned with how must have felt being so close to him,” she said. “I’m three years older and I’m protective. We know how difficult it was for him, but it was also for me.”

The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has since taken responsibility and apologized for giving Beatty the wrong envelope — he was handed Emma Stone’s Best Actress card instead of Best Picture — calling it a “human error” but admitting they did not “act quickly enough.”

And while the mix-up was quickly rectified on stage, MacLaine said she “immediately” called her brother.

“He was backstage dealing with what he was going through. He didn’t answer his phone,” MacLaine says. “And then I called the home and answered and we talked. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

Bu the situation continued to haunt her into the night, causing her to leave the Vanity Fair afterparty early. “I just wanted to go home. It’s something to really think about, what if it happened to you?” she said.

On Tuesday, Beatty called on Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs to publicly explain the incident.

“Rather than for me to respond to questions from the press about the Academy ceremony, I feel it would be more appropriate for the president of the Academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, to publicly clarify what happened as soon as possible,” Beatty said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly.

Boone Isaacs announced on Wednesday confirming that the two PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants involved will not work the awards show again.