I mentioned some of this John Travolta stuff in a few of the Oscar posts yesterday, but there’s new information so we might as well recap. Even after one of the most viral flubs ever last year, John Travolta was still invited back to present this year. The WTF-ery began on the red carpet, when John Travolta spied his friend Scarlett Johansson (they worked together when she was just a kid). He snuck up behind her to plant a kiss on her cheek while she was posing for the bank of cameras. The photos are pretty creepy.

The WTF-ery continued inside, when Oscar producers decided to lean in to the Adele Dazeem debacle by having Travolta and Idina Menzel present an award together. It was actually one of the funniest and most well-written parts of the evening, and I say this with no shade: I like Travolta more for being willing to eat it and be the butt of the joke (double entendre alert). I think he was genuinely sorry that he mangled Idina’s name and he really did want to make it up to her.

Unfortunately, Travolta decided to fool around with the blocking while he was on stage with Idina. He ended up stroking her chin and touching her face in a rather creepy way. Then, after the Oscars, Travolta put on four layers of guyliner, some mascara and some pancake foundation (NO JOKE) and made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He joked with Kimmel that “Apparently I played with her chin too much.” And that’s it. That’s the only explanation he gave for the chin-fondling. But he did explain the original Adele Dazeem debacle and how it came about. Guess what? It involved Travolta acting creepy with yet another woman!!

John says that backstage, last year, “I run into Goldie Hawn. Now, Goldie Hawn is sexy, charismatic, beautiful … amazing, and I was star-struck. I’m star-struck, hugging and loving her up, forgetting that I have to go and do this bit. And they said, ‘You’re on.’” He says he was presented with a card that had Idina’s name written out phonetically, and it was different than the card he was using during the rehearsal.

And all’s well that ends well, I guess. Travolta says that Idina has “had one of the best years of her life and credits me for that.” Riiight.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Photos courtesy of WENN & Getty.