Okay, so the latest Cinderella movie’s promotional tour has been a little cringey at times (looking at you, viral crosswalk musical phone footage) — but compared to that infamous moment when John Travolta completely messed up Idina Menzel’s name at the 2014 Academy Awards, it’s nothing.
Yes, we remember that. Yes, it was 10,000 years ago.
Sure enough, when Menzel joined her Cinderella co-stars James Corden, Billy Porter and Camilla Cabello for a Carpool Karaoke session on Wednesday, the moment came up again.
“First I felt really sorry for myself, like Meryl Streep’s out there, this is my big break and he just ****ed up my name,” Menzel explained. “I was so nervous, I had meditated on this moment, I was gonna sing to my son to put perspective on everything, and then that happened and it all went out the window!”
But when Corden asks her, retrospectively, how she feels about it now, Menzel is very quick with her reply: “It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
Already an established and Wicked-ly talented Broadway star, Menzel’s name was already firmly on the map. But after the Travolta gaffe went viral, her name (well, both versions of them) was all everybody was talking about the next day, and it even led to a sketch between Menzel and Travolta at the 2015 Oscars the following year. Travolta even joked about it at the VMAs in 2019.
And as for how Travolta himself has responded to Menzel privately since it happened?
“He’s written so many nice apologetic emails, sent flowers, he’s so kind, and to make up for it he would fly wherever at this point,” Menzel said. “And I always just say, ‘No worries, because it was the best thing that ever happened to me!'”
