And the award for most hilarious mix-up goes to…
If you thought Jennifer Coolidge was referring to Bill Nye instead of Bill Nighy in her Golden Globes speech, you're not alone. The Science Guy, 67, recently revealed that even his own sister got confused.
"My sister called me, my sister!" he exclusively told E! News at the seventh annual Blue Jacket Fashion Show in New York on Feb. 1. "'You won the Golden Globe?' 'No! That's the other guy.'"
Nye did, however, once meet Nighy in New York. "He was in a play called Skylight, and I went and saw it," the famed science educator continued. "Thought it was great. And then we both ended up at the [same] restaurant, and I took a selfie with him. He's a very nice guy. And he reassured us that he pronounces his name the same way I do."
Although, Nye reiterated the two spell their last names differently. "His, I think it's Gaelic, from somewhere in the British Isles," he added. "Nye is a misspelled Danish word for 'new.' It's misspelled, but it looks good on New Year's Eve. N-Y-E, that's it."
In case you missed the viral moment, Coolidge presented an award at the 2023 Golden Globes in January and told a story about how she was nervous to do the honors out of fear she'd fall, misread the teleprompter or mispronounce someone's name.
"Once I say somebody's name the wrong way, I'm screwed," The White Lotus star, who took home a trophy of her own that night, said. "I am screwed. I can't do it. Like, you hear it that one way and you can't undo it."
Coolidge then recalled how she once sat next to fellow nominee Nighy at a dinner party and kept saying his name incorrectly. However, some viewers thought she was referring to Nye.
The End Is Nye host then set the record straight. "When @jennifercoolidge talked about pronouncing Nighy last night, it was not about I," he wrote on Instagram. "But a few years ago, that Nighy assured this Nye that both of our names rhyme with 'guy.'"
While Nye might not be a movie star like the Love Actually alum, he was a runway star at the Blue Jacket Fashion Show, which was sponsored by Janssen Oncology and supported the nonprofit ZERO – The End of Prostate Cancer. He wore a suit by Nick Graham along with a Planetary Society patch and expressed the importance of early detection, noting, "We want men to get some form of prostate or hormone check every year."
- Reporting by Saryn Chorney