No shame here! Days after the viral snafu, John Travolta explained the moment he mixed up Taylor Swift with RuPaul’s Drag Race star Jade Jolie at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards.
“There’s so many people that bombarded the stage, that I was looking for [Taylor],” the 65-year-old actor said during an interview with Dallas-Fort Worth radio station Hot 93.3 on Thursday, August 29. “So the video has me trying to find her, and you know, I thought it was so funny the way it was interpreted — it was cool. I didn’t care.”
The moment when Travolta seemingly went to hand Jolie with the Moon Person for Video of the Year award for Swift’s hit “You Need to Calm Down” during the Sunday, August 26, award show went viral, but The Fanatic star regrets not taking it a step further.
“Sometimes I fantasize what if I had given it to [Jolie],” he said on the radio on Thursday. “That would have been awesome. … I should have just gone all the way with it.”
Swift, however, was indeed presented with the trophy during Sunday’s show. And according to friend and choreographer Todrick Hall, the “ME!” songstress wasn’t bothered by the incident.
“He was so confident that it was her,” Hall said on the Jerry O’ Show on Wednesday, August 28. “I loved it! I saw it, and we talked about it backstage. Taylor thought it was hilarious.”
Jolie also joked about the moment via Instagram: “Almost got my first award tonight thanks to @johntravolta 😂😂😂😘😘😘”
The incident at the 2019 VMAs wasn’t Travolta’s first viral blunder at an awards show. Back in 2014, the Grease star infamously mispronounced Idina Menzel’s name at the Oscars, referring to the Frozen star as “Adele Dazeem.”
“I’ve been beating myself up all day,” Travolta said in a statement to the Los Angeles at the time. “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!”
