Jimmy Kimmel was extra cautious while pronouncing Rihanna's name: Here's why

Jimmy Kimmel did his homework properly on how to pronounce the names of famous people.

Following the Oscars 2023 broadcast, the show's executive producer, Molly McNearney, who also happens to be Kimmel's wife, spoke with Variety about Kimmel's recent hosting gig on Sunday night. She discussed how Kimmel correctly pronounced Rihanna, "ree-ANN-uh," as opposed to the more common "ri-AH-nuh."

"Jimmy is obsessed with pronouncing people's names correctly," said McNearney, 45. "There is a guy at the show whose job is to find the pronunciations. We always find video of the person saying their own name on camera. And that is the way you pronounce Rihanna."

She further mentioned how "there's a whole interview with" the Umbrella singer, 35, about it and added, "Jimmy said, 'I want to call her the way the name that she calls herself.' And that's how she says it in Barbados."

"It felt funny to people," she added. "Now America knows how to pronounce her name, although they won't. They'll just assume Jimmy f---ed up, but no, he did not!"

Kimmel, 55, "had two versions of the monologue," according to McNearney, and the gags in each one were based on where particular celebrities were at the time.

"One if Rihanna was in her seat, one if she was not in her seat," she elucidated. "One if Rihanna had her baby on her lap, which she wanted to do. And one if her baby was not on her lap. A lot of our jokes were kind of at the mercy of people being in their seats."