John Travolta’s Flowery Apology to Idina Menzel

Image by Getty Images

By Anne Cohen March 20, 2014

When John Travolta apologizes, he does it properly.

After seriously butchering Idina Menzel’s name at the Oscars (in case you live under a rock, or you know, don’t have Internet, he called her “Adela Dazeem”), the 60-year-old actor reportedly sent a little gift to the Jewish Broadway star’s dressing room.

“He sent her a big, gorgeous bouquet of flowers to her dressing room,” a source told E!News. “It was HUGE. It was his apology to her.”

“It was clear he felt very bad about it,” the source added. “And by the size of the arrangement it was an obvious ‘forgive me please’ gesture.’”

The name flub launched a thousand memes, including a widget on Slate allowing readers to “Travoltify” their names.

I’ve been beating myself up all day,” the “Pulp Fiction” star said in a statement right after the snafu. “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!”

Menzel is now starring in “If/Then” on Broadway.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO