And the winner for best gaffe at the Oscars goes to . . . the academy itself.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled a nifty tool for fans to tweet their predictions ahead of Sunday’s awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
However, cinephiles went wild when the academy seemingly tweeted its own “predictions” Monday to its 3.4 million followers before deleting the erroneous tweet.
To show off its new Oscars Prediction Experience tool, the academy tweeted a photo reading “My Oscar predictions” with picks for all the major categories.
According to the photo, which has since been deleted but retweeted by many, the academy is predicting “Parasite” for Best Picture, Sam Mendes for Best Director for his film “1917,” “Parasite” for Best Original Screenplay and “Jojo Rabbit” for Adapted Screenplay.
In the acting categories, the predictions tweet selected “Joker” star Joaquin Phoenix for Best Actor, “Judy” star Renée Zellweger for Best Actress, and in the supporting categories, “Once Upon a Time in . . . Hollywood” actor Brad Pitt and “Marriage Story” actress Laura Dern.
Of course, the blunder drew attention from fans who believed the predictions meant the academy announced Oscar winners early — and seemed to fall right in line with many critics’ guesses for winners, including The Post’s picks for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Director.
“Wonder if @TheAcademy will say something about this bot (?) that tweeted out Oscar predictions,” a journalist tweeted.
“Not the academy twitter intern releasing their Oscar prediction list . . .,” one fan joked.
“The academy deleted their Oscar predictions tweet which is somehow funnier than them tweeting it in the first place,” another chimed in.
After deleting the tweet, the academy issued an apology for the confusion, claiming it was just sharing examples of the new interactive experience generated from fans.
“We invited fans on Twitter to make and share your #Oscars predictions. A ton of you already have,” the statement read. “A brief issue on Twitter made some of yours look like they came from our account. They didn’t. This error is now resolved. And we’ll reveal our picks on Sunday.”
The blooper comes after the most infamous Oscars mix-up, in 2017 when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway accidentally announced the Academy Award winner for Best Picture as “La La Land” instead of “Moonlight” in a flub heard round the world.
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