Ed O’Neill once met Britney Spears and had NO idea it was her

Britney Spears gets approached daily by hyperventilating strangers asking for a photo with her, but last spring, the pop star found herself on the other side of the fan-meets-celebrity equation, and it didn’t go quite as planned.

The celebrity in question? Ed O’Neill, star of Modern Family.

As Ed explained in a recent appearance on The Ellen Show, he was waiting at the airport to board a plane to Hawaii when a blonde woman approached him. “She came up and said, ‘Oh, Mr. O’Neill, I love Modern Family, and you’re my favorite on the show.’

The fan politely asked Ed for a photo, “so I said, ‘Sure, fine, you know, okay.’ So she sat there, and we took it, and I said, ‘Have a nice trip. I’m going,’ and I left.”

It wasn’t until Ed’s manager texted him the next day that he discovered his anonymous fan was actually one of the most famous pop stars on Earth. Britney had tweeted the photo out to her 45 million followers. false

We honestly can’t decide who is the more endearing person in this story: Britney for letting her fangirl flag fly, or Ed for being 100% clueless throughout the entire interaction.

One person who was not amused? Ed’s daughter, Sophia, a Britney fan who had four words for her hapless dad after hearing this story: “You are a moron.”