John Travolta had another award show snafu when he mistook RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Jade Jolie instead of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. He almost handed the coveted Video of the Year award to her music video look-a-like drag queen Jade Jolie.
Swift’s video that won the Video of the Year award, titled, “You Need to Calm Down,” features a variety of A-list celebrities and reality TV personalities. The video, which accompanies the hit-pop song that is an anthem for the LGBTQA+ community, showcases different reality stars. There are cameos of the Fab Five from Queer Eye - Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Jonathan Van Ness, Tan France, and Karamo Brown - and features American Idol singer Adam Lambert giving Ellen DeGeneres a tattoo on her forearm, as well as a multitude of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni, including - Tatianna, Trinity Taylor, Delta Work, Trinity K. Bonet, Adore Delano, A’keria Chanel Davenport, and Beyoncé impersonator Riley Knoxx. Of course, there is Swift impersonator Jade Jolie, who lip-syncs along with the words as a stand-in for Swift.
A decade after the infamous VMA Kanye incident, Swift returned to the VMA this year with 12 nominations. Swift experienced an accidental dis this year by none other than John Travolta. The actor shared the stage with Queen Latifah to announce the Video of the Year award winner. Travolta immediately looked nervous and insisted that Latifah does the honors of reading the winner, saying, “I shouldn’t do this because I’ll just mispronounce st and fk it up,” referring to back in 2014 when he mispronounced Idina Menzel’s name when he introduced her to sing Frozen’s hit song “Let It Go” at the Oscars.
As it turns out, Travolta still managed another blunder. Latifah announced that Swift won the VMA award, and as the RuPaul Drag Race queens made their way onto their stage, Travolta tried to hand Jolie the award before Swift even made it on the stage. Swift, however, didn’t catch Travolta’s mishap. Todrick Hall - Swift’s friend and co-executive producer for the “You Need to Calm Down” video - gave a speech on Swift’s behalf. He started by encouraging young viewers to feel accepted with this video and to be encouraged to produce their own art.
Even though it seemed that Travolta made a slight snafu at yet another award show, it is still a much better reception than what she experienced a decade ago when she was faced with Kanye West. Overall, it was a nice win for the LGBTQA+ community, with Swift uniting people through music. And Travolta’s mistake only confirms what an amazing Swift impressionist Jolie is. Fans can watch more RuPaul Drag Race queens compete in season 12, which will be premiering early 2020.
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