VMAs 2019: John Travolta Almost Gave Taylor Swift’s Award to ‘Drag Race’ Star Jade Jolie

Fans spotted an awkward moment between John Travolta, Taylor Swift and a Drag Race contestant at the VMAs on Monday night. The acclaimed actor presented Swift with the award for video of the year, but not before mistakenly handing it to Jade Jolie. The moment quickly went viral on Twitter.

Travolta co-presented the biggest award of the night on Monday along with Queen Latifah. With his history of award show slip-ups, Travolta let Latifah read the envelope, joking that he could only mess it up. In spite of this, he still found room for a serious error.

When Latifah called Swift’s name, the singer stood up and began hugging her friends and family. She made her way to the stage slowly, but in the chaos, Travolta thought he saw her somewhere else. The actor tried to hand Swift’s award to Jade Jolie, a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race who has been known to dress up as a Swift impersonator.

The camera cut away from Travolta quickly, perhaps attempting to hide the gaffe. However, it only took a few Twitter users to draw fans’ attention to it. In no time, the video became a meme of its own.

“John Travolta accidentally giving Taylor Swift’s award to a drag queen is OBJECTIVELY FUNNIER by the fact that literally one minute earlier he made Queen Latifah read the envelope so he WOULDN’T MESS UP,” one person pointed out.

“John Travolta just gave the VMA to ‘Drag Race‘ alum Jade Jolie in Taylor Swift drag, FULLY not knowing that it was NOT Taylor Swift, thinking that it was IN FACT Taylor Swift. I am… reeling,” added another. “I will never stop shaking from this.”

“Hey here’s my question why is John Travolta allowed to give out any awards anymore,” wondered a third person.

This is not the first time Travolta has had a slip up at an award show. In 2014, he presented at the Oscars, where he famously mispronounced Idina Menzel’s name as

“Adele Dazeem.” That, too, was a viral moment, and this one is compounded by the fact that it’s not the first.

Therefore, it is no surprise that many peoples’ initial response to Travolta’s mistake on Monday was to ask why he is still asked to present at award shows at all. In particular, many questioned why he was brought to the MTV Video Music Awards this week, since he is not a musician himself.

Some even wondered whether Travolta was set up to fail, with producers hoping he would create another viral moment. So far, there is no confirmation of this conspiracy theory.