Golden Globes: Tracy Morgan’s ‘Soul’ Gaffe Sparks Playful Jokes

Tracy Morgan entertained Golden Globes viewers as only he can Sunday night after Pixar’s latest film Soul won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Unfortunately, the comedian must have suddenly started thinking of someone named Sal instead, so he botched the movie’s pronunciation. Morgan’s flub sparked plenty of playful jokes on Twitter, inspiring Morgan to make fun of himself.

After Morgan opened the envelope, he blurted out, in total seriousness, “SAL!” He then laughed at himself, just as laughter burst from the small audience gathered at the Beverly Hilton did as well. The Golden Globes producers began playing composer Jon Batiste’s acceptance speech, just as Morgan realized his mistake and correctly announced Soul. Moments later, Morgan joked about it again on Twitter. “Sorry SOUL. I was thinking about the pizza I was going to get from my guy SAL on the way home,” Morgan wrote.

“Nothing will ever be better than Tracy Morgan yelling ‘Sal!’ instead of ‘Soul!’” NPR’s Sam Sanders tweeted. “He deserves a Golden Globe for this.” Another viewer chimed in, “Tracy Morgan giving the award to ‘Sal’ instead of Soul is just perfect.”

“So far the best part of this #GoldenGlobes has been the zoom hang of Don Cheadle, Eugene Levy, and Jason Sudeikis making fun of Tracy Morgan’s ‘Sal.’ We need more candid content like that,” one viewer wrote.

Soul features an original score from Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Batiste. The other nominees in the Original Score category were Ross and Reznor for Mank; James Newton Howard for News of the World, Alexandre Desplat for The Midnight Sky, and Ludwig Goransson for Tenet. Soul also won Best Animated Feature Film, beating out The Croods: A New Age, Onward, Over the Moon, and Wolfwalkers.