Morgan Freeman Learns About Twerking, Reads Definition During Television Appearance

Morgan Freeman just learned about twerking, the raunchy dance style that has become the hit of the summer.

The distinguished actor was making an appearance on HLN when he learned that twerking was not only a hot dance style, but now an officially recognized word in the English language.

“The word ‘twerking’ has now been added to the Oxford Dictionary,” Freeman said. “Here’s the definition they gave: ‘To dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and low squatting stance.’ ”

The appearance was actually the first time that Morgan Freeman had learned about twerking, which apparently means he hasn’t been paying attention to the news lately. The dance — which has actually been around for quite a while, under sometimes different names — was a hot topic this week after Miley Cyrus twerked on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night.

The barely clothed 20-year-old singer performed the dance in front of the much-older singer Robin Thicke, helping the term twerking become a popular phrase this week.

A few days later the term was bolstered by Oxford’s, which added the word to the dictionary along with the words selfie, phablet, and babymoon.

“Research by the Oxford Dictionaries team shows that these terms have been absorbed by popular culture, hence their inclusion in the latest ODO update,” the dictionary explained.

Morgan Freeman, reading the definition on air in his best “Morgan Freeman voiceover” tones, seems to be in on the joke about the strange-sounding word and even stranger-looking dance. But never let it be said that Morgan lacks a sense of humor — earlier this year he made an appearance on Jimmy Fallon to poke fun at an incident where he fell asleep during an interview.

For those hoping to actually see Morgan Freeman twerking — it appears you’ll have to wait a bit longer.