You have to hand it to John Travolta. He was given the opportunity to introduce one of the incredible music performances at Sunday’s 86th Academy Awards ceremony, and he only had to deliver a few simple lines about singer Idina Menzel and the song she was about to sing. Yet somehow as the star of Battlefield Earth complimented “the wickedly-talented, one and only” singer while boasting of the “gorgeously-empowering” song “Let it Go” from the Oscar-winning Frozen, he managed to butcher her name by calling her “Adele Dazeem.”
Earlier today, after hundreds of thousands of people had spent an entire day Travoltafying their names, Travolta’s publicist released a statement with the actor’s humble apology.
“I’ve been beating myself up all day. 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!”
Cheesy? Sure. But it was still a nice, heartfelt response to an otherwise embarrassing situation that took away from possibly the biggest moment of Menzel’s career. That is, unless you consider the fact that it’s the same exact joke that Jimmy Fallon made on The Tonight Show last night.
This is the Internet era, though, and most people will forget about this soon enough, while others will begin acting outraged on Travolta’s behalf. In the meantime, we should try to enjoy everything about this, because it’s still just ripe for parody.