Music

John Travolta Just Had An ‘Adele Dazeem’ Moment With Taylor Swift At The 2019 VMAs

He avoided screwing up any names, but it was still...quite awkward.

by Jared Richards  27 August 2019
John Travolta at the 2019 VMAs

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John Travolta and Queen Latifah just presented Taylor Swift with the Best Music Video award at the 2019 VMAs, and god bless, Travolta tried to hand the award to Jade Jolie, a drag queen dressed as Taylor Swift.

How did this happen? When accepting the award, Swift was joined on-stage by a group of dancers and stars who featured in her (controversial) music video for ‘You Need To Calm Down’ and performed alongside her earlier in the night. We see where the mistake happened — Travolta turned to congratulate Swift and found himself face-to-face with RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Jade Jolie. To be fair, her Swift impersonation is very, very tight.

As the eagle eyes at Pop Crave noticed, Travolta began to present the award to Jolie, who herself realises what’s happening as it’s happening. It’s one of those incredibly awkward but also inevitable moments — this could’ve happened to anyone, but it feels like the fates determined that Travolta and Jolie would one day stand side-by-side to let these glorious four seconds occur, their whole careers leading to it.

As Kevin O’Keeffe points out on Twitter, you can see the moment where fellow Drag Race queen Tatianna sees what’s happening.

Just before announcing the award, Travolta even made light of his famous ‘Adele Dazeem’ moment at the 2014 Oscars — in case you need reminding, he was trying to say ‘Idina Menzel’. He handed off the award envelope to Latifah, joking he’d ‘probably’ screw it up by mispronouncing the winner. Avoiding that trap, Travolta let his guard down, which was a fatal mistake — the Final Destination forces behind award show snafus had another thing coming.

The whole encounter is four seconds long, but it’s instantly eternal. Watch and rewatch and rewatch it below.