The president of the film academy says the two accountants responsible for the best-picture blunder at Sunday’s Academy Awards will never return to the Oscar show.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs says Brian Cullinan, the PwC representative responsible for handing over the errant envelope that led to La La Land mistakenly being announced as best picture rather than Moonlight, was distracted backstage.

He tweeted (and later deleted) a photo of Emma Stone with her new Oscar minutes before giving presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for best picture.

Jimmy Kimmel joked about the blunder on late night TV after hosting the Oscars. Photo: Twitter/ABC

Accountants banned

Cullinan and his colleague, Martha Ruiz, have been permanently removed from all film academy dealings, Boone Isaacs said.

Dunaway went on to award the Oscar to La La Land, rather than the actual winner, Moonlight, after she and Beatty received the wrong envelope.

The mistake was not noticed until the La Land Land crew were mid-speech, prompting an awkward conclusion to the awards ceremony.

The academy president finally broke her silence on Thursday following the biggest blunder in the 89-year history of the Academy Awards.

She told The Associated Press that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ relationship with PwC, which has been responsible for tallying and revealing Oscar winners for 83 years, remains under review.

Academy apology

Though the academy released a statement on Monday apologising to the artists of Moonlight and La La Land, Boone Isaacs said she waited to say more until her team had a better understanding of what led to the error.

WAIT WHAT IS HAPPENING #Oscars https://t.co/4C6QkMm55H

— Mashable (@mashable) February 27, 2017

She praised presenters Beatty and Dunaway and host Jimmy Kimmel for gracefully taking charge of the situation.

She also lauded La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, whom she said “went from a nominee to a winner to a presenter in a matter of minutes.”

Horowitz, still holding the Oscar he thought he’d won, was the first to announce that Moonlight was the actual winner.

Boone Isaacs lamented that “the last 90 seconds” of the telecast have overshadowed what she described as “the most brilliant and wonderful show.”