She may not have let it go, but at least she can laugh about it.
At a comedy benefit, Jon Stewart and Idina Menzel recreated the infamous 2014 Oscar moment when John Tavolta bizarrely introduced her as “Adele Dazeem.”
The “Wicked” star and the “Daily Show” legend turned the viral mishap into a full-blown musical roast at the Stand Up For Heroes benefit at David Geffen Hall.
After Stewart played the role of Travolta, Menzel burst into song, “Adele Da-what? Are you freaking kidding me? I’ve worked my whole life to get to this point and he screws up my name? Adele Dazeem? Did he not rehearse? Did he have a stroke? Should we call an ambulance?”
Menzel recalled her early Broadway days when no one recognized her offstage because she was covered in green paint as Elphaba in “Wicked.”
Then came “Frozen” and a new kind of identity crisis.
“I’m an animated blonde Norwegian-looking 12-year-old with anorexic arms and blue eyes the size of grapefruits,” she joked. “But really I am a middle-aged Jewish American Princess with 34 double D’s soon to be on a waiting list for Ozempic.”
The tune then shifted into a rousing rendition of Frozen phenomenon “Let It Go.”
Travolta has since said the teleprompter had shown him phonetic spelling.
Stewart also performed a stand up set during the benefit for the Bob Woodruff Foundation, joking to the well-heeled crowd about new Mayor elect Zohran Mamdani, “Are you the ones leaving?”
“Everyone is nervous, ‘he’s going to turn the city into a sh*thole,” he said, joking, “Isn’t that why we moved here…New York is hard, it’s shitty.”
Stewart later said, “I’m excited to see what the guy does. People say ‘Aren’t you worried about antisemitism?’”
“I’m not worried about antisemitism. I mean this. I think antisemitism will be fine. It’s very resilient,” he joked.
Comic Tom Papa commented on the state of the world, saying, “I don’t think things are any scarier, we just have all the world’s bad news in our pocket.”
“I heard donkeys kill more people per year than shark attacks and plane crashes combined,” he said, adding, “That was not on my list of things to be scared of. I thought [donkeys were] just thinking stupid donkey thoughts. I didn’t think he was planning a murder.”
Comics Alex Edelman, Jim Gaffigan, and Mike Birbiglia also got the crowd in stitches with Lea Michele and Leslie Odom Jr. performing. The event raised more than $4.5M for veterans, service members and their families.
The night also brought out a fifth grader named Owen who had raised money to help veterans with PTSD, inspiring the crowd to open up their wallets.
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