Idina Menzel Channels ‘Adele Dazeem’ Frustration Into PSA on How to Pronounce Kamala Harris’ Name
Idina Menzel has experienced more than her fair share of people mispronouncing her name — but she’s drawing the line when it comes to Kamala Harris.
With Election Day less than a month away, the Broadway alum issued a video PSA via Instagram on Sunday demonstrating the exact way to say the VP’s moniker. “You have to get the pronunciation of Kamala Harris correct,” she says in the clip, standing outside while addressing the camera. “It’s getting really exhausting. It’s Kamala, like a comma. ‘Comma-la.'”
“I tend to be an expert on pronunciations of names, since mine is always screwed up, as you know,” Menzel continued, before referencing one of the most viral moments of her career: when John Travolta butchered her name while introducing her performance at the 2014 Oscars.
“And not just as ‘Adele Dazeem,'” the Frozen star says. “People call me Indiana, ‘Eye-dina’ … I was just at an event in Oklahoma, and they called me ‘Ay-deena Menzul.'”
Though Menzel says people are constantly mispronouncing her name, Travolta’s flub is definitely the most memorable. Though he’d later say that a last-second change to the teleprompter was to blame, he mistakenly set up her performance of “Let It Go” by saying, “Please welcome the wickedly talented, one and only Adele Dazeem.”
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At the time, Menzel took it in stride and, at the next year’s ceremony, got the Grease actor back by referring to him as “Glom Gazingo” as the two presented onstage. Earlier this year, the Rent performer celebrated the viral moment’s 10-year anniversary with a funny TikTok, telling the camera: “Hey, Adele Dazeem! It’s Idina Menzel … I just wanted to say happy birthday. Sending you so much love and positive energy.”
When it comes to Harris, however, Menzel isn’t joking around. At the end of her PSA, the star adds, “I think that the vice president and soon-to-be president should have her name pronounced correctly.”
Watch Menzel’s tutorial on how to say Kamala Harris’ name below.
Hannah Dailey
Billboard
