Live broadcasts are a hotbed of flubs and Filipino singer-actress Lea Salonga was the subject of an awkward but ultimately pretty funny one on Wednesday. An anchor from British news organization Sky News mixed Salonga up with another guest and ended up leading her live interview with the wrong introduction.
It happened during a live newscast of the morning show Sunrise that was streamed on YouTube and uploaded on July 3. While the mistake had been edited out from the final video, it was captured by a netizen who then posted it on YouTube on Friday.
You can watch it below but get ready for some secondhand embarrassment.
“Now would you be prepared to give up flying for a whole year to help the planet? Well, the flight free campaign wants us to do just that. It wants 100,000 people to promise to give up flying for 2020. And one of those asking us to do that will be doing it herself is in environmental campaigner Anna Hughes,” anchor Stephen Dixon said before the show switched to a close-up shot of a confused Salonga.
Salonga waited for Dixon to finish his spiel before breaking it to him and his co-anchor that she, in fact, was not Anna Hughes.
“I am not Anna Hughes. I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on,” she said before laughing. “No, I’m not Anna Hughes. Sorry about that.”
Dixon quickly realized who she actually was and said that he had his doubts about the copy he read when the singer was brought to the studio.
“I was thinking, ‘I’m sure that’s Lea Salonga,'” he said.
“Why does Princess Jasmine not want to fly for a year?” Dixon joked. Salonga took it lightly and was laughing before the show cut to a break.
“We are mortified here on Sunrise. We are mortified,” Dixon said when the show went back on the air. He also took the time to recite Salonga’s accomplishments including her role as Kim in the musical Miss Saigon and as a singing voice for two Disney princesses. Apart from Aladdin‘s Jasmine, she is also the singing voice for Mulan.
READ: The real Lea Salonga does not want your money; Broadway star warns of fake account posing as her
With all the awkwardness out of the way, the rest of the interview actually went smoothly and had Salonga talking about her tour in the United Kingdom.
“I was asked really really nicely to come and this is my first time touring in the U.K. I’ve never done it before,” Salonga said.
She shared that the tour was scheduled earlier in the year but was postponed after she broke her leg while skiing. Because of the rescheduling, she’s now in the U.K. almost exactly 30 years after she came to the country to rehearse for Miss Saigon in 1989.
Salonga started her international theater career at 18 years old when she originated the role of Kim on Miss Saigon, for which she won an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. She has also appeared on stage, TV, and movies here in the Philippines.
