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Jimmy Kimmel on Oscars Best Picture screw-up: 'Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus'

On his show Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel offered his take on the Oscars best picture snafu.
/ Source: TODAY

If you ask Jimmy Kimmel, Warren Beatty didn't do his "Bonnie and Clyde" co-star Faye Dunaway any favors during Sunday night's best picture flub at the Oscars.

On his show Monday night, the Academy Awards host gave his side of the epic screw-up in which Beatty and Dunaway mistakenly awarded the night's biggest prize to "La La Land" instead of the actual winner, "Moonlight."

In the days since, it's become clear what happened. Before heading to the mic, Beatty was handed the wrong envelope — the one containing the name of best actress winner Emma Stone.

That's why he initially appeared puzzled; after a few moments, he handed the envelope to Dunaway, who announced "La La Land," Stone's movie, as the winner of best picture.

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During his monologue, Kimmel joked Beatty had pulled "a slick move."

"In retrospect we now know that he was confused, so Warren handed it to Faye and let her read the (wrong) one,'' Kimmel said. "In other words, Clyde threw Bonnie under the bus."

Kimmel also noted that Dunaway was nowhere to be found after the mix-up was discovered and the stage became crowded with Oscars staffers, Tinseltown producers and actors.

"It wasn't Warren Beatty's fault, and Faye Dunaway got the hell out of there,'' Kimmel said. "She read the wrong name and she split. She wanted no part of it."

Kimmel also spoke about the awkwardness of watching the spectacle unfold from the audience, where he'd moved to close out the show. Several "La La Land" producers made speeches before the correct winner was announced.

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“But we’re sitting there, and we notice some commotion going on, and Matt (Damon) says, ‘I think I heard the stage manager say they got the winner wrong.' So you're sitting there and you figure, well, the host will go onstage and clear this up. And then I remember, oh I’m the host."

That was followed by a chaotic scene in which "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz announced that "Moonlight" was the real winner, all while clutching an Oscar he would have to return.

"My first instinct was to tell him to run,'' Kimmel joked.

Kimmel also addressed any notion that the bizarre ending was some type of prank.

"I did not pull a prank,'' he said. "If I pulled a prank, by the way, I would not just have had the wrong winner's name on the envelope, when they opened it there would be like a Bed, Bath and Beyond coupon in it."

Follow TODAY.com writer Scott Stump on Twitter.