The hosts of daily news programs like Today are well-seasoned veterans who know how to kill it on live air. However, as they go about doing daily tapings for shows on the 2025 TV schedule, bloopers and slip-ups are inevitable. That point was hilariously made recently by Carson Daly, who recalled the story behind the time he seriously messed up pronouncing Leonardo DiCaprio’s name.
A few of Today’s hosts, Savannah Guthrie, Carson Daly and Craig Melvin (who took over for Hoda Kotb after she left), spoke with Andy Cohen during Today Fan Fest about their work. The Watch What Happens Live host specifically asked about on-air bloopers toward the end of the segment, and immediately, The Voice host had an answer. Without missing a beat, he said:
Oh, I have one. One of my big snafus was reading a story – it was when I was new here too, I wasn't used to the teleprompter, and I said — the story was about Leonardo [DiCaprio] — and I said 'Leonardo DeCrapio.'
That admission sent Guthrie and Melvin into fits of laughter. And while this story is quite funny, I know I’d certainly be mortified if I did something like that. To that point, Daly explained that to this day, he can’t say the One Battle After Another star’s name without his heart rate going up. He said:
And to this day, when I see Leonardo's name in the prompter, my heartbeat starts to go.
That’s so fair! There are a lot of celebrities whose names get mispronounced, like Rihanna (it’s ree-ann-uh) and Raven-Symoné (it’s ray-ven see-mon-ye). And I have to admit, if I were reading a teleprompter really fast, I could see myself easily switching up a few letters in Leonardo DiCaprio.
Sadly, when you do switch the letters, you get “DiCrapio,” which is reminiscent, in a way, of the time Jenna Bush Hager cursed live on air. While Daly didn’t get bleeped for it, he stated that it was quite embarrassing.
However, he wasn’t the only one with a horror story. Craig Melvin said that one time, he read that a certain brand’s food had killed eight people, but that did not happen; eight people got sick. He said that slip-up almost got them sued. Meanwhile, Savannah Guthrie recalled a time when she asked Khloé Kardashian if Rob Kardashian was her dad right before they cut to break. Andy Cohen admitted that he asked Oprah Winfrey an embarrassing question about if she’s ever “swum in the lady pond.”
So, they all had their tales of embarrassment, and I’m certain that every journalist has one too. I know I do.
However, you learn from them and become better because of them. Or, in Carson Daly’s case, you probably never pronounce Leonardo DiCaprio’s name wrong ever again.
