Idina Menzel wants it known that she has no hard feelings for John Travolta after he famously botched saying her name at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony. It is just the opposite.
The moment was captured by many and has been replaced hundreds of thousands of times. Menzel was about to take the stage to sing “Let It Go,” her iconic song from the Oscar-winning film, “Frozen.”
All Travolta had to do was introduce her, but the famous “Grease” star somehow mispronounced his first and last names saying something like “Adele Dazeem.”
In a sit-down interview with Willie Geist, Menzel talked about the famous incident. She said she initially thought, “I’m finally here and this guy screwed up my name.”
But then she quickly told herself, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get your s— 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 my career because all the people that had no idea who I was were like … ‘Who is this 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 for myself, 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 worrying about that he messed up your name. Sing, b—-!'”
Porter then interjected, “Sing! And you did! I was watching.”
The Broadway star said Travolta’s flub proved to be fortuitous. After all, his mangled pronunciation of her name got everybody talking about her. It also ended up connecting her with Travolta forever.
“It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” gushed Menzel, who added of 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 ever happened,'” she added.
The day after Travolta flubbed the name, he wrote, ”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!”
