Watch: Remember When Ellen Verbally Slapped Liza at the Oscars by Calling her a 'Drag Queen'?

One of the most touching moments in Oscar history occurred when Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli took to the stage to announce the Best Picture Oscar. Gaga acted as the visibly frail Minnelli's confidant during the sequence in which the Oscar-winner was seen appearing a bit confused and in a wheelchair. When Liza fumbled with her notes, Gaga reassured her with: "I've got it."�

But the moment brought to mind another time Liza made headlines from an Oscar appearance. That was in 2014 when Ellen DeGeneres hosted the event. It was during her monologue that she made a crack that was something of a verbal slap in which she misgendered Liza.

"Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I've ever seen," DeGeneres said as she looked out into the crowd at the Dolby Theater that night. "Good job, sir."

"At the time, Minnelli was all smiles in the face of the joke, but during morning visit to "Today" the following day, she shared her real reaction.

"I was really fine until she said 'sir,' and then I thought, 'Ouch! Ouch' a little," she confessed. "But I looked at my sister [actress Lorna Luft] and she was laughing. I thought, 'Well, they just didn't give her the rest of the cue card.' No. ... I know Ellen, she would have said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Liza.' I guess it wasn't supposed to be like that."

Making matters worse, Liza was literally pushed out of Ellen's famous selfie of celebrities attending the event. While she was in the background, she is not seen in the viral photo.

"They all came running down there, 95 miles an hour," she said of the other stars. "Somebody yelled at me, 'Get up!' I thought, 'Whoa!' So I got up."

But when she saw herself overshadowed by the other stars, she sat down. "I turned around and sat down again," she recalled.

At the time the Hollywood Reporter wrote: "DeGeneres has been criticized for what some view as an especially harsh joke compared with the rest of her monologue – she's even been called "transphobic" – while some have said it seemed atypical of DeGeneres' brand of more genial humor."

But DeGeneres went on to defend her actions on her talk show.

"I don't know if people didn't know she was there when I made the joke about the best impersonator, and, I mean, she's a totally cool lady. I mean, I went up to her later and she was funny and fine, but I think people thought I was offending her in some way. But she was totally cool," she said at the time.

Watch Ellen's joke about Liza at the 2:18 mark.