At the MTV VMAs Monday, August 26, John Travolta had the distinct honor of presenting the Video of the Year award to Taylor Swift, whose video for “You Need to Calm Down” took home the evening’s top prize. Unfortunately, though, the actor tried to hand the award to RuPaul’s Drag Race alum and noted Taylor Swift impersonator Jade Jolie.
Given Travolta’s past history of awards show screwups, it makes a kind of weird sense that he would’ve confused Jolie for Swift. But in a new interview with Hot 93.3 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Travolta claims he actually just couldn’t find Swift on the stage.
“There were so many people that bombarded the stage, that I was looking for her,” explained Travolta. “So the video has me looking, trying to find her. But, you know, I thought it was so funny the way it was interpreted, and it was cool.”
Sure, man.
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He went on to say that he wishes he’d leaned into the mix-up, and made his giving the trophy to Jolie a little more intentional. “I sometimes fantasize: What if I had given it to her? Wouldn’t that have been awesome? Like, I should’ve just like, gone all the way with it.”
Check out a clip from Travolta’s interview above, and revisit our initial coverage of the incident here.
