John Travolta On Idina Menzel Flub: Goldie Hawn Is To Blame?

John Travolta and Idina Menzel reunited last night at the Oscars to remind everyone that Travolta mispronounced the singer’s name as Adele Dazeem during last year’s ceremony. The moment from last year might be a painful reminder that it was ten times more entertaining than the dragged out ceremony we saw this year.

This year Travolta and Menzel took to the stage to make fun of the blunder, but that’s not the only awkward moment we saw from the Grease star. One significant moment that wasn’t televised during the broadcast happened during Travolta’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live’s annual Oscar special.

John Travolta showed up to talk about all things Oscar, and of course his Adele Dazeem blunder. The surprising part of his appearance is that we apparently have Goldie Hawn to blame for his original flub during the ceremony.

Right before Travolta went out on stage to introduce Idina Menzel, he bumped into Goldie Hawn backstage. This small encounter was evidently too much for Travolta to process, and he became very flustered by the encounter.

In his own words the Pulp Fiction star explained, “Now, Goldie Hawn is sexy, charismatic, beautiful… amazing, and I was star-struck. I’m star-struck hugging and loving her up, forgetting that I have to go and do this bit. And they said, ‘You’re on.'”

As if that wasn’t enough Travolta said he was expected on stage earlier than he had originally thought. On top of that, the page he had rehearsed was stuck on the elevator so he had to rely on the phonetic spelling of Idina Menzel’s name, which left him at a loss for words.

“What is that name? I don’t know that name. It was the phonetic spelling, but I didn’t rehearse it that way.”

What makes this story interesting is that it didn’t come out until a year later. When his flub went viral there was no mention of Goldie Hawn or his missing page. Instead Travolta issued an apology to Idina Menzel, who will probably always be jokingly referred to as Adele Dazeem.

“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!'”

Travolta didn’t shy away from talking about this year’s ceremony either. At the end of the night host Neil Patrick Harris roasted highlights from the night, which included Travolta touching Idina’s face during their Adele Dazeem rehash. When asked about the comment, Travolta said, “Apparently, I played with her chin too much.” What a trooper!

[Photo by Kevin Winter/ Getty Images]