Jimmy Kimmel was "trying really hard not to laugh" during the Oscars fiasco.
The 49-year-old star had been sitting in the audience next to his fake foe Matt Damon when the ‘La La Land’ team got on stage to accept the Best Picture Academy Award on Sunday (26.02.17) when his pal heard a stage manager say the wrong name had been called.
Jimmy sat back and waited for the evening’s host to intervene – before remembering it was his job, so he stood on stage at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre "like an idiot" while the honour was re-presented to ‘Moonlight’.
He said: "[It] is unusual, but you figure, ‘Well, the host will go onstage and clear this up.’ And then I remembered, ‘Oh! I’m the host!’
"…Now so we have the producers of two movies on stage. Who the hell even knows who is who from which movie?
"I’m standing there [on stage] like an idiot, feeling bad for these guys, but also trying really hard not to laugh, to be honest."
As he walked off stage as the show came to a close, Jimmy was surprised to hear people speculating as to whether the incident was a prank he’d planned.
But he insisted: "If I had pulled a prank in that situation, I wouldn’t have just had the wrong winner’s name in the envelope.
"When they opened it, there would have been, like, a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon inside."
And the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ host praised the graciousness of the ‘La La Land’ producers.
He quipped during his talk show on Monday (27.02.17): "They handled it well. It was a very amicable custody arrangement. They didn’t ask for visitation or anything."
Jimmy – who has kids Kevin and Katherine with first wife Gina Maddy and daughter Jane, two, with pregnant wife Molly McNearney – also revealed the shocking mix-up wasn’t the worst thing that had happened on Sunday as there was panic a bomb had been detonated during rehearsals when two structures on the stage collapsed.
He said: "During our rehearsal the day of the show, about halfway through at about noon yesterday, a huge part of the set collapsed.
"I stepped off stage and about a minute later, [two giant structures] both came crashing down. It scared the crap out of everybody. A lot of people thought a bomb went off. My wife shoved our daughter under a table to protect her. Somehow – even though we had like five cameras going – no one got this on video.
"So the envelope thing was a distant second in the disaster category.
"Not too many people know this, but the Dolby Theatre was built on an ancient Indian burial ground."
Jimmy Kimmel wanted to laugh during Oscars fiasco
