Terrence Howard’s emotional introduction for the Best Picture nominees during last month’s 87th annual Academy Awards left many viewers bewildered by the actor’s awkward pauses in his monologue.

Earlier this week the “Empire” star appeared on “The Tonight Show” where he explained how his reluctance to read the teleprompter ultimately led to his Oscar mishap.

“The worst part about this, I’m at the Academy Awards…I got Meryl Streep, I got all the best actors in the world and they’re up there reading the teleprompter. Doing 1920 impersonations of reading the teleprompter,” Howard explained to host Jimmy Fallon. “I was like, ‘Man, I can memorize that.’ So everybody who went up there, I’m clowning them. I’m talking to my wife like, ‘Look at this. I can do better than this…Watch when I go up there.'”

“I walk out there, first and foremost I forgot to wear a belt that day…and I get out there and I’m breathing, and I got this memorized. I worked 18 hours to work this out, I’m about to kill it. And I get out there, there’s Oprah. ‘Hi Oprah.’”

Howard jokingly admitted that he was distracted by the star studded audience — and in true Fallon fashion, the host made him relive the moment by airing a cringe-worthy clip of Howard’s hilarious fumble.

Perhaps Howard was reminiscing about his much-talked about salacious love scene with Winfrey in Lee Daniels’ 2013 film, “The Butler” — but that’s just one guess.

Check out more of Terrence Howard’s Oscar commentary in the clip above.