Idina Menzel has no hard feelings for John Travolta after the “Grease” starfamously botched her name at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony. In fact, she’sglad it happened.
In a now-infamous Oscars moment, Menzel was about to take the stage to sing”Let It Go,” her signature song from the Oscar-winning movie “Frozen.” AllTravolta, one of the night’s presenters, had to do was introduce her. But theveteran actor somehow mispronounced her first and last names. (Adele Dazeem?)
In a Sunday Sitdown interview with Willie Geist, Menzel reflected on theincident. She remembers initially thinking, “I’m finally here and this guyscrewed up my name.”
But then she quickly told herself, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get yours— together, you know? You gotta get ready to sing this note.”
Menzel added, “It ended up being one of the best things that happened for mycareer because all the people that had no idea who I was were like … ‘Who isthis girl?'”
During a 2021 appearance on “The Late Late Show’s” fun “Carpool Karaoke”> segment alongside her “Cinderella” co-stars Camila Cabello and Billy Porter,> Menzel shared a similar sentiment.
“I had eight seconds to say to myself, at first I felt really sorry formyself, like, ‘Meryl Streep’s out there. This is my big break and he just f—up my name,'” Menzel said, laughing. “And then eight seconds, the band starts,I am like, ‘Get your s— together. C’mon, this is your moment. Stop worryingabout that he messed up your name. Sing, b—!””
Porter then interjected, “Sing! And you did! I was watching.”
87th Annual Academy Awards – Show (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Menzel continued, explaining that she had intended to sing to her son, WalkerDiggs, whom she shares with her ex Taye Diggs.
“I was so nervous. I had meditated on this moment. I was going to sing to myson to really put perspective into everything and then that happened,” shesaid, now cracking up.
Looking back, the Broadway star said Travolta’s flub proved to be fortunate.After all, his mangled pronunciation of her name got everybody talking abouther. It also ended up connecting her with Travolta forever.
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“It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” gushed Menzel, who addedof Travolta, “He’s written so many nice, apologetic emails. He’s sent flowers.He’s so kind. To make up for it, he would, like, fly wherever at this point,he’s so sweet.
“I just always say, ‘No worries because it was the best thing that everhappened,'” she added.
For his part, Travolta apologized for the mispronunciation in a publicstatement days after the ceremony.
“I’ve been beating myself up all day. Then I thought … what would Idina Menzelsay, She’d say, Let it go, let it go!” he joked. “Idina is incredibly talentedand I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!”
Menzel and Travolta ended up presenting together at the Academy Awards thefollowing year. Immediately after the ceremony, Travolta appeared on “JimmyKimmel Live!”
During the pair’s chat, Travolta opened up about his 2014 introduction fauxpas, explaining that there was much confusion backstage. Travolta recalled acrew member telling him he was due onstage at least 15 minutes sooner than heexpected.
Moments later, the former “Welcome Back, Kotter” star ran into Hollywoodlegend Goldie Hawn and became “starstruck.”
Before the frazzled actor knew it, he was tapped to go on. As he made his wayto the stage, he was told that his cue cards would now feature a _phonetic_spelling of Menzel’s name.
“So I go out there and I get to her thing and I thought, ‘Hmm,'” Travolta saidwith a confused look on his face.
The new phonetic spelling of Menzel’s name looked bizarre on the cards, saidTravolta, who recalled thinking, “I don’t know that name.”
“It was just a phonetic spelling, but I didn’t rehearse it that way,” he said.
After laughing about the matter with Kimmel, Travolta added that he was happythat Menzel had enjoyed “one of the best years” of her career since hisblundered introduction. “And she gives me credit,” he said, affirming.
Five years later, Menzel made it clear again that she looks back fondly onTravolta’s introduction. Just weeks before she performed “Into the Unknown”from “Frozen II” at the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony, Menzel referred to thespecial moment in atweet.
“When I was a little girl I dreamed of moments like these,” she wrote, adding,”Who is brave enough to introduce me?”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com