There’s nothing worse than getting in front of an audience on stage and completely mispronouncing a word.
Now, imagine the audience was a room full of A-list celebrities and the stage was the 2014 Oscars. This was what happened to Grease star John Travolta at the 86th Academy Awards a decade ago.
Travolta was introducing Frozen voice actress and theatre legend Idina Menzel, who was there to perform her hit Disney song Let It Go.
Watch the video above.
READ MORE: It’s been a decade since this Oscars photo ‘broke’ the internet
Menzel, who was already famous for her long-running Broadway role as Elphaba in Wicked, had skyrocketed in popularity after Frozen was released.
Being invited to the Oscars was a no-brainer – but she was still, apparently, not so well known around Hollywood. In fact, Travolta had no idea how to even say her name.
When introducing Menzel, Travolta described her as “the wickedly talented, one and only… Adele Dazeem.”
Travolta was clearly struggling to read from the teleprompter when he mispronounced Menzel’s first and last name.
READ MORE: How this 2009 incident sparked 15-year feud between Kanye and Taylor
Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres pointedly said Menzel’s name several times on stage throughout the night, in a bid to correct the mishap.
Menzel took it in great stride and later told Billboard magazine Travolta had personally apologised and sent her flowers after the gaffe.
“He was really gracious and sent this gorgeous email, and we’re buddies and it’s all cool,” she said.
“Please. I mean, I’ve only benefited from it.”
READ MORE: The snap decision that spelled the end of the Spice Girls in 1998
He also shared a statement two days after the Oscars. “I’ve been beating myself up all day,” he said.
“Then I thought…what would Idina Menzel say? She’d say, Let it go, let it go! Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!”
That didn’t stop the internet from turning the moment into an enduring meme, though.
Josh Gad, who voiced Olaf the Snowman in Frozen, was watching it take place from the audience and wasn’t sure he’d even heard Travolta correctly.
“I had to rewind it when I got home because I was watching it live, and I was like, Wait, what just happened? It was only later that I realised that a meme had been born,” he told Vanity Fair.
Those memes included jokes about Travolta pronouncing other celebrity names wrong, parody accounts and TikTok videos (which of course came much later).
It wasn’t a bad thing for Menzel, though, who admitted it actually helped boost her profile.
She told Vanity Fair it “was one of the best things that’s happened in my career”.
READ MORE: The shock double divorce that tore ABBA apart at the peak of their fame
“I think that anyone that didn’t know me at the time was like, Who is this girl they’re all talking about?” she said.
“And all the people that knew me were up in arms and felt bad for me. So a lot of love was sent my way, and a lot of people got to know who I was. And so actually, it was a great thing for me personally.”
This year marked 10 year since Travolta butchered Menzel’s name – and the Frozen star is still laughing about it now.
She took to social media in March 2024 to wish Travolta “happy anniversary” in a tongue-in-cheek message.
“Hey, Adele Dazeem, it’s Idina Menzel. I just want to say happy birthday,” she joked on TikTok.
“I’m sending you so much love and positive energy. I hope you have the best, best day.”