Oh, what a time to be alive! Idina Menzel will never forget the 2014 Oscars when John Travolta introduced her as “Adele Dazeem” before she sang “Let It Go” live in front of the entire world. She rocked her performance, and she also nailed the 10th anniversary of the Grease star’s mishap in the most hilarious way.
Jumping on TikTok (which didn’t even exist when Adele Dazeem was born), Menzel said, “Hey, Adele Dazeem, it’s Idina Menzel. I just want to say happy birthday. I’m sending you so much love and positive energy, I hope you have the best, best day.” She then gave her best Broadway rendition of “Happy Birthday” to the fictitious version of herself and added, “Have a great one. Lots of love. Bye!”
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Nobody will ever forget Travolta’s very passionate and committed introduction of Menzel and the Frozen song — although he probably wishes we would forget it. “There will always be a special place in my heart for the movie musical and for the songs that create their most memorable moments,” he said while struggling to read the Teleprompter. “Here to perform the Oscar-nominated, gorgeously empowering song ‘Let It Go,’ from the Oscar-winning animated movie Frozen, please welcome the wickedly talented, one and only Adele Dazeem.”
The moment went viral, of course, and Travolta released a graceful statement two days later. “I’ve been beating myself up all day,” he wrote. “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!” Menzel wasn’t fazed one bit, later sharing in an oral history on the event in Vanity Fair that the gaffe was “one of the best things that happened for my career.” She continued, “All the people that had no idea who I was were like… ‘Who is this girl?'”
Travolta, who has a reputation for being one of the nicest celebrities in Hollywood, wrote “so many nice, apologetic emails” and “sent flowers” to apologize to Menzel. Travolta later gave a lengthy explanation in 2015 to Jimmy Kimmel, noting that he was brought backstage late and, on his way, to present Menzel, he ran into Goldie Hawn. “Now, Goldie Hawn is charismatic, sexy, beautiful. And I was starstruck. I was starstruck, hugging and loving her up, and forgetting that I have to go and do this bit. And they said, “You’re on”… They said, “Oh, by the way, we’ve changed Idina’s name to phonetic spelling.” I go, “What do you mean?” [He gestures how a producer pushed him onstage:] “Go!”
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And that’s how viral moment is still meme-worthy a decade later.
Before you go, click here to see more of the most shocking Oscars moments.
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