Jimmy Kimmel Live! executive producer Molly McNearney has revealed that her husband Jimmy Kimmel is “obsessed” with correctly pronouncing names.

During Sunday (12 March) night’s live broadcast of the 95th Oscars, the late-night host confused certain viewers when he introduced Rihanna in his opening monologue.

“Rihanna is here,” Kimmel announced, saying her name with a hard “a” – ree-Ann-uh – as opposed to the more commonly used “ree-ah-nuh”.

“It felt funny to people,” McNearney told Variety of Kimmel’s pronunciation of the Oscar-nominated singer’s moniker, however, clarifying that “that is the way you pronounce Rihanna”.

“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!” she said.

"Jimmy is obsessed with pronouncing people's names correctly," she added. "There is a guy at the show whose job is to find the pronunciations. We always find...