The Today Show co-host Carson Daly has admitted one of the most embarrassing on-air blunders that still mortifies him to this day. Bravo host Andy Cohen asked several questions during a Fan Fest segment to the Today Show cast, probing them on any mistakes that they still think about. While fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie said she still feels guilty about a question she asked Khloe Kardashian, the host of The Voice shared that he still remembers badly mispronouncing an actor’s name on live TV when he was still a new anchor on the popular NBC morning show.
Daly still frightened when he sees actor’s name on the teleprompter
“One of my big snafus was reading a story…I was new here too. I wasn’t used to the teleprompter,” Daly recalls of his slip-up. “I said — the story about Leonardo [DiCaprio] — and I said ‘Leonardo Di-Crap-io.’”
After taking in the laughter of Guthrie and co-host Craig Melvin over his blunder, Daly confessed that seeing the actor’s name still gives him anxiety. “And to this day, when I see Leonardo’s name in the prompter, my heartbeat starts to go.”
To be fair to Daly, Leonardo DiCaprio’s name has been the subject of many videos that explain how to pronounce it correctly.
In fact, the 50-year-old Oscar winner revealed on the “New Heights” podcast with Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce that his first agent, when the actor was 12 or 13 years old, wanted him to change his name because it sounded “too ethnic.” Afraid that DiCaprio wouldn’t be hired, the agent suggested “Lenny Williams” instead. But when his father, George DiCaprio, heard about the name change, he ripped up a photo with the name “Lenny Williams” on it and said “Over my dead body.”
Daly made his debut on the Today Show in 2013 and has largely avoided name mix-ups since then.
