The Oscars can be a stressful night for everyone involved, especially if you make a pretty epic Twitter mistake in the process of covering the awards.
Yes, in an unfortunate incident, a beauty brand accidentally confused Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey while discussing the former’s shoulder tattoo on Twitter.
Copyright (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Sharing a photo of Whoopi looking gorgeous on the Oscars red carpet, the brand wrote: “We had no idea @Oprah was #tattooed and we love it. #Oscar.”
Oprah was not present at this year’s awards.
The tweet has since been deleted, but not before fans managed to take screenshots of the error.
Copyright (Twitter)
Gayle King later shared this photo of Oprah reacting to the faux pas, writing: “@Oprah and her favorite daughter watching #Oscars and watching @totalbeautyeditors! We all love @whoopigoldberg but we don’t all look alike Jeeeze! (sic)”
Copyright (Instagram/Gayle King)
The timing of the mistake is particularly interesting (and horrifying, obviously), as there has been a huge debate about diversity surrounding this year’s Oscars.
The #OscarsSoWhite campaign has been analyzing and highlighting the lack of black and Asian nominees at the 2016 awards, and some Hollywood stars decided to boycott the show in protest.
Total Beauty has since apologized for its mistake, tweeting: “We would like to apologize to Oprah and Whoopi, as well as everyone we have offended. It was our mistake and there are no excuses. We sorry.”
They later added: “Using these #Oscars #SNAFU as an opportunity to donate $10k to @whoopigoldberg and @oprah’s charity of choice. #That’s not Oprah #We mean it.”
