Idina Menzel spills on John Travolta’s infamous Oscars gaffe

Idina Menzel has revealed what happened in the moments after John Travolta’s infamous “Adele Dazeem” flub at the 2014 Oscars.

Idina Menzel just can’t let Adele Dazeem go.

The singer, 50, brought up the infamous moment when John Travolta messed up her name at the 2014 Oscars once again while discussing her new film, Cinderella.

Travolta, 67, butchered the Frozen star’s name on stage when he introduced her as “Adele Dazeem” to the audience.

The incident has stayed with her ever since, and she admitted that her evening was complete in the “eight seconds after he screwed up my name”.

“First, I felt really sorry for myself, like Meryl Streep’s out there, this is my big break and he just f***ed up my name,” she told James Corden on The Late Late Show segment “Carpool Karaoke”.

“I had eight seconds to say to myself, first, I felt really sorry for myself,” Menzel said. “And then eight seconds the band starts, I was like, ‘Get yourself together, stop worrying that he messed up your name, sing b**ch!’”

Her Cinderella co-stars, Billy Porter and Camila Cabello, were also in the car. The Pose star then interjected, “Sing! And you did! I was watching.”

The Rent singer continued: “I was so nervous, I had meditated on this moment, I was going to sing to my son to really bring perspective to everything and then that happened.

“It was the greatest thing that ever happened,” she said. “He’s written so many nice, apologetic emails. He’s so kind. To make up for it, he would just fly wherever at this point, he’s so sweet. I just always say, ‘No worries because it was the best thing that ever happened!’”

Idina Menzel, or as she was known at the 2014 Oscars, ‘Adele Dazeem’. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

John Travolta apologised publicly afterwards for the name gaffe. Picture: AFP Photo/Robyn Beck

The Grease actor apologised in a statement at the time, saying: “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!”

He continued: “Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!”

The Disney film won Oscars for Best Animated Film and Best Original Song at the 86th Academy Awards.

However, Menzel’s appearance on The Late Late Show wasn’t the only time she spoke about the incident. Back in 2016, the Broadway star appeared at a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival, where she also exclaimed that the moment was the “best thing that ever happened to me”.

“The honest truth? Right when it was happening, I was like, ‘What the f**k did he just say?’” Menzel joked.

“Get over yourself. You’re so vain and conceited. Just go. Sing. Like, Meryl Streep is there. That’s the whole thing that went on, about eight seconds to get myself back in the zone.”

This story originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission