Hollywood insiders say that feuding between Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway may have helped bungle the Best Picture presentation at the Oscars well before the awards show even started.
The “Bonnie and Clyde” stars already had a beef ahead of the rehearsals, leading up to the epic Sunday snafu.
A source says 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.”
The source said that Beatty took off, “leaving Dunaway to do the entire rehearsal herself . . . He left once he was told it was to be televised for studio blocking and other telecast needs.”
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 balked at doing it together at all.”
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.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm responsible for the ballots, has taken the blame for the error that wrongly crowned “La La Land” Best Picture before “Moonlight” rightfully won. “The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, [it] was immediately corrected,” the firm said.
Page Six reported that after the show, Beatty refused to hand over the envelopes in question to the firm, which is investigating what happened. Dunaway reportedly was overheard saying, “I really f - - ked that up” at the Vanity Fair afterparty. When reached by phone Tuesday night, the feisty Dunaway immediately hung up.
Reps for both Beatty and Dunaway didn’t get back to us.