One of Ricky Gervais’ best moments was when, at the 2020 Golden Globes, he ripped into the Hollywood personalities at the event and even went so far as to call them Epstein’s friends.
That taunt came when he was joking about a Netflix show called “Afterlife” and said, “That’s a show about a man who wants to kill himself because his wife dies of cancer and it’s still more fun than this, OK? Spoiler alert: Season two is on the way so in the end he obviously didn’t kill himself. Just like Jeffrey Epstein.” Then, when the audience groaned, he said, “Shut up. I know he’s your friend but I don’t care. You had to make your own way here in your own plane, didn’t you?”
Ricky Gervais’ opening monologue just broke Hollywood pic.twitter.com/9ap6B0JOsy
— Barstool News Network (@BarstoolNewsN) January 6, 2020
Well, a few months after those jokes at the Golden Globes, Gervais appeared on the Kelly Clarkson Show to dicuss why he makes such jokes at the expense of the Hollywood elite. When Clarkson commended him for the monologue, Gervais said:
“As a comedian when you’re invited to one of those things, which are, you know, they’re the worst gigs in the world, you know, because to hear jokes, they’re there to win an award, right? And you’ve made the decision to go do I pander to the 200 people in the room, or the 200 million people watching at home, no contest.
“Those people aren’t willing awards. They’re not millionaires. I’m trying to make this a spectator sport. And who am I teasing? The richest, most privileged people on the planet. They’re not a roomful of wounded soldiers. And they hand it out, they hand it out to people when they let you live public on how to live, right. And, and I think that people are getting tired of that that’d be the people are tired. The hypocrisy in these these multimillionaires telling them to clean out and recycle when they’re flying around in private jets and limousines. And I think people are just tired of it.”
He then added that he stands by his jokes and has thought them through, saying, “Oh, yeah. I mean, I think I think comedy, it does need an analytical mind. You have to look at it from you know, all sides. I think it has to be fair, you have to know what target airport and you have to justify it and you have to be able to stand by it. And I think a lot of offense comes when people mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target. They’re not the same particularly in in subtle humor with satire or irony. And you also have to make the joke bulletproof so you can stand up and defend it. I’m not one of those comedians, who goes out and does it. I’m gonna say anything to ruin their day, and I don’t care it I’m drunk. That’s just not true. I’ve worked on those jokes. When I go around at all. I work on every one of those jokes, and I listened to people make sure that I can defend that joke till the day I die.”
In a different interview on the subject, Gervais said that he does so not to ruin the nights of those celebrities at the show, but to entertain the millions of people watching at home, saying, “I know what I’m going to say. I’m not there to ruin their night, I’m there to make the people at home laugh.”
He then noted that his mocking the elites when doing the shows is just his persona, saying, “They don’t know that me doing standup and me at the Golden Globes is a bit of a persona as well. There I play this brash character who’s come to ruin the liberal elites’ night. I’ve honed those jokes. I’ve made those jokes bulletproof.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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