I’ve worked in entertainment long enough to consider myself adequately jaded, so you’ll forgive me when the first thought that popped into my head when Envelopegate took over the world last night was, “Hm, I wonder if they’re just trying to increase viewership.”
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After all, last night’s Academy Awards was a 9-year low for viewers despite Jimmy Kimmel’s best attempts to make the show fun by putting Matt Damon down in a host of glorious (and kinda harsh) ways. The cookies falling from the sky and the unsuspecting tourists were also a nice touch. But it doesn’t have the grandeur of the VMAs, where everyone is trying to one up each other, or the Golden Globes, where celebrities get notoriously wasted.
The Oscars is, well, traditionally seen as stuffy. Making a mistake like Envelopegate definitely makes the whole show seem less put together, if you will.
And that might have been the whole point.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, who is responsible for the Oscars, is reportedly blaming the envelope mishap on a man named Brian Cullinan, who was in charge of the envelopes for the night; however, it’s still unclear how the mix-up happened, exactly, since even Cullinan himself said before the Oscars the chance of someone announcing the wrong name would be “so unlikely.”
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Interesting timing, no?
Cullinan has yet to comment on the incident, probably because he’s legally bound to silence at this point and simply focusing on not hyperventilating as the world learns his name.
I do feel sorry for the guy. This is, no doubt, not the Hollywood notoriety he was hoping for.
Publicity stunt or not, his name will now go down in Oscar history alongside one of the biggest scandals the Academy Awards has ever seen.
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Do you think Envelopegate could have been a publicity stunt?
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