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Tag: late night

  • John Oliver Exposes a “Hard-Core MAGA Candidate” Running in Tennessee

    John Oliver Exposes a “Hard-Core MAGA Candidate” Running in Tennessee

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    Although Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver missed the first round of Kevin McCarthy jabs following the representative’s ouster as House Speaker, he did manage to criticize the current state of the GOP on Sunday night. The Republican Party, Oliver said, “is being controlled by the absolute extremes—but not just nationally, at the local level too.”

    Before delving into Sunday’s main topic, homeschooling, Oliver introduced viewers to Gabrielle Hanson, a real estate agent and town alderman running against the incumbent Republican mayor in Franklin, Tennessee. “She’s branded herself as a hard-core MAGA candidate,” Oliver said, while showing photos of Hanson at Donald Trump’s Florida compound, Mar-a-Lago. “Look how happy she is there. That’s the face of someone who’s just dined out on a well-done steak and read some classified documents on the toilet.”

    And as a NewsChannel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams—whom Oliver dubbed “Nashville’s nosiest bitch”—has found, Hanson also has a laundry list of controversies. They include allegedly lying about dining with a diverse group of supporters and criticizing a Juneteenth celebration at a Nashville airport, as well as being supported by members of a white nationalist group. (Hanson denied being affiliated with the group.) 

    Hanson also attempted to block a Pride event earlier this year, and voiced her concerns about the event by holding up a photo of a participant dressed in drag as Elmo and classifying it as a confusing threat to children. “But by that logic, we should ban children from walking around Times Square too,” Oliver argued. “Because seeing Olaf from Frozen with his head popped off, smoking a Black & Mild, is way more confusing than someone wearing eye shadow in an Elmo-themed bodysuit.” Oliver also properly identified the drag queen as Jaidynn Diore Fierce—a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race season seven who is “constantly serving cartoon looks.” 

    “Have you ever seen a Minion serve body?” Oliver added. “Because you have now.”

    Oliver then pointed out the hypocrisy of Hanson’s statement by showing a photo of her husband wearing nothing but an American flag Speedo, reportedly on a dare from his wife, while attending 2008’s Chicago Pride Parade. “So to recap,” Oliver said. “Snatched Elmo: irreparably harmful to children. Star-spangled ball bag: That’s apparently completely fine with her.”

    Oliver concluded that Hanson was emblematic of the “vise-like grip” that far-right Republicans have on the party amid McCarthy’s axing. “In a world that made sense, this woman would obviously have withdrawn from this mayoral race in shame—but she still has supporters,” Oliver noted. “And there’s a real chance she could still win this election, because while her numerous scandals are clearly almost cartoonish in their extremity, her behavior is entirely emblematic of Republican politics, from the local level all the way up to the top.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Bill Maher Becomes First Host to Make Late-Night Return Without Writers

    Bill Maher Becomes First Host to Make Late-Night Return Without Writers

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    Bill Maher is going “off-the-cuff” when his late-night series Real Time with Bill Maher returns to HBO amid the ongoing writers’ strike, the host announced on Wednesday via social media.

    “Real Time is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing,” Maher wrote in a statement that makes him the first late-night host to return to the desk since shows went dark on May 2 as the WGA started its strike. “It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns,” he continued.

    Maher, whose show will return Sept. 22, according to Deadline, said that despite some aid from his own pocket, “much of the staff is struggling mightily. We all were hopeful this would come to an end after Labor Day, but that day has come and gone, and there still seems to be nothing happening. I love my writers, I am one of them, but I’m not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much.”

    The host’s hiatus hobbies have included hating on the Barbie movie and criticizing the goals and timing of the WGA’s strike. “What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike [is] it seems to be, they have really morphed a long way from 2007’s strike, where they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer, and you’re not,” Maher said on his “Club Random” podcast with guest Jim Gaffigan last week. “They struck at just the wrong time; they have no leverage. Has anyone who is watching TV recently noticed a difference? Has it affected the person down the pipeline? I don’t think so. I haven’t noticed a difference.”

    But in announcing his late-night reinstatement, Maher insisted he’d “honor the spirit of the strike by not doing a monologue, desk piece, ‘New Rules’ or editorial, the written pieces that I am so proud of on Real Time.” While “the show I will be doing without my writers will not be as good as our normal show, full stop,” Maher continued, “the heart of the show is an off-the-cuff panel discussion that aims to cut through the bullshit and predictable partisanship, and that will continue. The show will not disappoint.”

    The Writers Guild of America West, of which Maher is a member, called his decision “disappointing” on social media. “If he goes forward with his plan, he needs to honor more than ‘the spirit of the strike,’” the organization said in a follow-up tweet. The WGA also confirmed it “will be picketing this show,” adding, “it is difficult to imagine how @RealTimers can go forward without a violation of WGA strike rules taking place.” Other writers called Maher out directly, including Stephen King, who reposted the host’s statement and wrote, “This is exactly how strikes are broken.”

    Maher’s move comes amidst controversial daytime TV returns for The Talk, The Jennifer Hudson Show, Sherri, and The Drew Barrymore Show. After Drew Barrymore confirmed that her talk show would return despite both the WGA and SAG strikes earlier this week, the WGA announced that it would picket the Monday and Tuesday tapings of her series as it is “a WGA-covered, struck show that is planning to return without its writers.” Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA released a statement clarifying that Barrymore wasn’t in violation of its strike, saying that her return to The Drew Barrymore Show “is permissible work” and that “Drew’s role as host does not violate the current strike rules.” But the fallout continued—Barrymore was subsequently dropped as host of the National Book Awards ceremony.

    With no end to the strike in sight, other prominent late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver have launched their own podcast, Strike Force Five, the proceeds from which are being promised to out-of-work late-night TV staffers.

    The most recent episode of Real Time aired on April 28 and featured guest Elon Musk. Shortly after Maher announced his show’s return on X (formerly Twitter), Musk offered up the site as a space for Maher’s content. “Maybe worth posting some material on this platform,” the CEO replied. “The reach is enormous.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Report: Jimmy Fallon’s “Erratic” Behavior Created a “Horrible Environment” at ‘The Tonight Show’

    Report: Jimmy Fallon’s “Erratic” Behavior Created a “Horrible Environment” at ‘The Tonight Show’

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    Apparently, it isn’t all laughs at The Tonight Show. According to an exposé from Rolling Stone, 16 current and former staffers from The Tonight Show alleged that host Jimmy Fallon created a toxic environment due to his “erratic” behavior.

    All 16 staffers, which included two current and 14 former staffers, who spoke to Rolling Stone requested anonymity when speaking to Rolling Stone out of fear of retaliation. The staffers, who ranged from production crew members to office staffers to members of the writers room, allege that Fallon’s mood was highly erratic, creating an “ugly environment behind the scenes,” which trickled down to the show’s constantly changing leadership. The Tonight Show has had nine different showrunners since 2014. Staffers allege that the showrunners were unable to “say no to Jimmy,” and claim that some showrunners behaved toxically themselves. “I just don’t think they’ve landed on a leader who can keep it together,” said one former staffer. (Under the current showrunner, Chris Miller, who started in March 2022, sources say there have been no formal complaints.)

    “It’s a bummer because it was my dream job,” said another former employee. “Writing for late night is a lot of people’s dream jobs, and they’re coming into this and it becomes a nightmare very quickly. It’s sad that it’s like that, especially knowing that it doesn’t have to be that way.”

    The Rolling Stone story, written by Krystie Lee Yanoldi, begins with an anecdote alleging that Fallon appeared drunk on the set of the show. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, he [seems] drunk on set,” said an anonymous Tonight Show employee. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This could be awful—this could be the end of the show right here.” Fallon denied a Page Six report from 2016 that alleged that NBC executives were concerned about his “out of control” drinking. In a 2017 New York Times profile, he said, “I could never do a day-to-day job if I was drinking every night. That’s just kicking you when you’re down.”

    The story goes on to allege that Fallon has “good Jimmy days” and “bad Jimmy days,” where he’d allegedly “snap at crew members, express irritation over the smallest of things, and berate and belittle staffers out of frustration.” The staffers said that they used the phrase “we’re up against it” to warn each other when Fallon was allegedly having one of his bad days.

    “When something was wrong, we all knew how to behave afterward, which was just sort of avoid eye contact and don’t make another mistake,” said one former staffer. “It would happen over the smallest thing… We would have to shut the whole thing down, the sketch isn’t happening, and when things like that would happen, you would just beat yourself up.”

    The Rolling Stone story also includes an anecdote where Fallon allegedly yelled at a cue card holder while taping with guest Jerry Seinfeld, prompting Seinfeld to tell Fallon to apologize to the employee in front of his studio audience. However, Seinfeld sent a statement to Rolling Stone in defense of Fallon, calling the anecdote an “idiotic twisting of events.”

    “This is so stupid,” said Seinfeld. “I remember this moment quite well… I teased Jimmy about a flub, and we all had a fun laugh about how rarely Jimmy is thrown off. It was not uncomfortable at all. Jimmy and I still occasionally recall it and laugh. Idiotic twisting of events.”

    Tonight Show staffers allege that Fallon’s erratic behavior led “to widespread fear” at The Tonight Show, with one staffer saying that the host created “a horrible environment for the people there.” Due to the alleged toxic work environment and the often-changing leadership, some staffers said they suffered anxiety attacks, were put on antianxiety medication, and even experienced suicidal ideation. “Mentally, I was in the lowest place of my life. I didn’t want to live anymore. I thought about taking my own life all the time,” said one former employee. “I knew deep down I would never actually do it, but in my head, I’m like, ‘Why do I think about this all the time?’” (Rolling Stone mentions that while many Tonight Show staffers they spoke to “voiced their concerns through HR complaints,” problems at the show “persisted.”)

    A Saturday Night Live veteran, Fallon left his post at NBC’s Late Night and began hosting The Tonight Show in 2014. He did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment. However a spokesperson for NBC released the following statement: “We are incredibly proud of The Tonight Show, and providing a respectful working environment is a top priority. As in any workplace, we have had employees raise issues; those have been investigated and action has been taken where appropriate. As is always the case, we encourage employees who feel they have experienced or observed behavior inconsistent with our policies to report their concerns so that we may address them accordingly.”

    Vanity Fair has reached out to Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show for comment.

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Writers Strike: Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers Help Pay Crew Amid Production Hiatus

    Writers Strike: Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers Help Pay Crew Amid Production Hiatus

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    When Hollywood writers went on strike in 2007, the late-night shows were forced to go dark for about two months. During the hiatus, Jay Leno famously delivered doughnuts via motorcycle to the picket lines, and Jimmy Kimmel and other hosts paid staff out of pocket. “The strike basically wiped out all my savings,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host told The Hollywood Reporter for a retrospective on the strike’s 10th anniversary. The late-night shows eventually returned to the air; David Letterman even made his own deal with the studios so that his writers could return to work. 

    Fifteen years later, writers are striking again—and the late-night shows are the first to feel the impact once more. Leno is no longer the host of The Tonight Show, but he’s back delivering doughnuts to picketers. And some hosts are supporting their crew amid the chaos. Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon and Late Night’s Seth Meyers are both reportedly dipping into their pockets to help pay their crews for the missed work. According to sources and Hollywood trade reports, NBC will pay staffers’ salaries for two weeks, with Fallon and Meyers personally stepping in to help extend their pay for a third week. The network is also paying for employees’ health care through September. An NBCUniversal spokeswoman declined to comment. 

    Sarah Kobos, who describes herself as a senior photo research coordinator for the Tonight Show in her Twitter bio, posted to the social network that Fallon attended a Wednesday morning production meeting to let staff know that he’d helped negotiate for them to receive more pay. The previous day, she had tweeted angrily that staff wouldn’t get paid after this week. “Please support your staff,” she wrote, publicly appealing to the host. “Had fun bowling with ya last week, but a fun party won’t pay my rent.” 

    Seth Meyers walks the picket line during the 2007 writers strike.

    Joe Kohen/Getty Images. 

    Paying writers is a gesture of solidarity from Fallon and Meyers, both of whom are listed as members of the Writers Guild of America East branch. In a clip from his Monday show, Meyers—who picketed in 2007 when he was working on Saturday Night Live—expressed support for the guild, saying, “I feel very strongly that what the writers are asking for is not unreasonable.” While on the red carpet for the Met Gala, Fallon said, “I wouldn’t have a show if it wasn’t for my writers. I support them all the way.” His announcer, former SNL co-head writer Steve Higgins—whose son John Higgins is currently an SNL writer—was spotted on the picket line on Tuesday. 

    If the current strike plays out like the last one, crew members on the late-night shows could be out of work for a lot longer than three weeks. The 2007 strike lasted for 100 days; in 1988, writers stopped working for 153 days. During the last strike, most of the late-night shows eventually chose to resume production without their writers, welcoming them back only once the work stoppage finally ended. In that Hollywood Reporter interview, Kimmel said he felt he had to go back on the air because he couldn’t afford to support his crew any longer: “I also felt if we stayed off the air, it was going to do permanent damage to our shows.” 

    Vanity Fair will update this story as additional information emerges about how the other late-night shows are supporting their crew during the hiatus. 

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    Natalie Jarvey

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  • John Oliver Slams Budweiser For “Huge Misfire” After Dylan Mulvaney Backlash

    John Oliver Slams Budweiser For “Huge Misfire” After Dylan Mulvaney Backlash

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    John Oliver has long had a bone to pick with Budweiser. The late-night host, who previously compared the product’s taste to “The Jolly Green Giant’s ejaculate,” tore into the company on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, criticizing its response to backlash over a social media partnership with TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney. 

    In the weeks after Mulvaney posted an innocuous ad for Bud Light—a beverage Oliver described as “the beer you’d give a child to drink to teach it a lesson” and “a beer that asks the question: Are we allowed to call cat urine beer?’”—many customers “on the right absolutely lost their shit over this, because Bud Light partnered with a trans woman,” Oliver explained. “There have been calls for boycotts, and this incredibly stupid video from Kid Rock.”

    Oliver then mocked the footage, in which Rock can be seen shooting packs of purchased Bud Light with a rifle. “I don’t think there’s a more dangerous way to dispose of Bug Light other than, of course, drinking it,” Oliver quipped. “And second, not to gun shame Child Rock here, but you are 20 yards away from a target that’s bright, identifiable, and crucially stationary, and you are spraying bullets all over the place. Perhaps that is why it sure seems like you may have help there, because if you watch it slowed down, you’ll notice that three blasts that actually destroy the cases appear to be coming from the right.”

    The host then targeted the “real nastiness” behind the backlash with “moral panic around trans rights” arriving amidst anti-LBTQ laws in various states, including bans on gender-affirming care for kids. “And maddeningly, Anheuser-Busch’s response to that ugliness has been to equivocate in the face of it,” Oliver continued. “Its CEO put out a statement that said, ‘We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.’ Which, sure. Though, again, not technically beer so much as it’s fizzy water swished around a dog’s mouth.”

    He concluded the segment by playing a recent ad for Budweiser that emphasizes the unity its product brings, which Oliver called a “huge misfire.” He added,  “When bigots are loudly announcing they don’t like your beer because they are bigots, that is an opportunity to say ‘Then our beer is not for you.’ But if you’re going to cozy up to them with platitudes, stock footage, and frankly, distractingly fuckable horses, why not at least really go for it?”

    Basically, Oliver explained: “It’s pretty annoying to be both-sidesing something that when the two sides are: ‘I am trans’ and ‘That makes me so mad, I’m going to shoot $65 worth of nonrefundable beer.’”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Jon Stewart Declares Coverage of Trump’s Arrest an “Epic F–king Media Fail”

    Jon Stewart Declares Coverage of Trump’s Arrest an “Epic F–king Media Fail”

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    Jon Stewart was always going to skewer the historic arrest and arraignment of former president Donald Trump. However, he bided his time until the season finale of his own Apple TV+ show, The Problem With Jon Stewart, rather than gifting the commentary to his former Daily Show home.

    The veteran late-night host crashed Tuesday’s episode of The Daily Show dressed as Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi, but didn’t provide any takes on the indictment in his conversation with Roy Wood Jr., instead joking about his persona as “the wise sage who mentors the young host.”

    But on Thursday, Stewart wasted no time tearing into the cable news media’s “jaded” coverage of Trump’s arrest, playing a montage of anchors being let down by the anticlimactic proceedings. “Oh, were you disappointed? Were you depressed?” Stewart asked. “Here’s why: because you treated this like the final confrontation with Thanos, and then it actually just played out like what it was, a boring-as-shit legal procedure at the very beginning of what will be a long, drawn-out, laborious legal process.” He added, “But please continue being let down by the expectations you motherfuckers created.”

    This week the former president was charged with 34 felony counts related to the hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, and Stewart had some fun with the amount of said payment. “By the way, does anybody—and this is just an off-topic thing—did anyone think $130,000 to Stormy Daniels seems a little light? In this economy?” he asked. “That’s just a dollar figure not of this era. That’s some shit like Taft or Coolidge would have pulled. Coolidge would’ve been like, ‘How about $130,000, or perhaps…hmm…a Model T?’”

    Stewart played several clips across MSNBC and CNN where various commentators called Trump’s indictment “underwhelming” and “unimpressive.” “Only our media, those cloistered, short-attention-span, own-ass-spelunking…” Stewart began before pausing to add, “no, defenders of democracy, find a president paying hush money to a Playboy model and an adult-film star, and then cooking the books to help himself win an election, underwhelming and boring.”

    He went in for the final kill by playing a clip of MSNBC personalities discussing why “the silence of Mitch McConnell—fall or no fall—speaks volumes,” before declaring, “Epic fucking media fail!”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • The Demi Ramos Show: Gianmarco Soresi

    The Demi Ramos Show: Gianmarco Soresi

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    In this episode, Demi pays a visit to the New York apartment of Gianmarco Soresi.

    With appearances on Comedy Central and The Late Late Show with James Corden, he’s one of comedy’s rising stars. Based in New York, he’s grown his following through consistent touring, TV gigs, and social media. Although he describes himself as a failed actor, Soresi has landed parts in CBS’s Blue Bloods and the Jennifer Lopez hit movie Hustlers.

    Watch him talk to Demi about his career in comedy, how he puts a show together, and his advice for young comics.

    Gianmarco Soresi | The Demi Ramos ShowVideo by Christian Zelder

    For more from Gianmarco Soresi, follow him on Instagram and TikTok. You can also listen to his podcast and catch him on tour.

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    Staff

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  • Chris Rock on Will Smith’s Marriage: “She Hurt Him Way More Than He Hurt Me”

    Chris Rock on Will Smith’s Marriage: “She Hurt Him Way More Than He Hurt Me”

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    It’s been almost a year since Chris Rock was slapped at the Oscars by Will Smith. During Netflix’s first-ever global live streaming event, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, it felt at times as if Rock was making viewers wait another year to hear his side of the story. But when he finally spoke candidly about the slap, he didn’t hold back.

    Before Rock’s historic live streaming comedy special began, Netflix presented a live comedy event, The Show Before The Show, hosted by Ronny Chieng at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles featuring comedians and personalities, including Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s J.B. Smoove, basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Insecure‘s Yvonne Orji, as well as Arsenio Hall, David Spade, Dana Carvey, and Leslie Jones. The vibe felt like the exact opposite of a roast of Rock, with many of the guests gassing Rock up before he took the stage. ““You are the shit. You are an icon. You are the goat. You are everything,” said Jones. 

    Moments later—across the country in Baltimore, Maryland—Rock, decked out in all white and rocking a necklace with Prince’s logo, took the stage and received a rapturous standing ovation. After basking in the glow, Rock screamed, “Nigga, sit down” at an apparently overly enthusiastic audience member, proving that what we were watching was, in fact, live.

    “Anybody who says that words hurt has never been punched in the face,” said Rock at the top of his set. “Words hurt when you write them on a brick.” While he began with that allusion to Will Smith, it would be  over an hour before Rock would really dive into Smith material, instead choosing to tell wide variety of jokes on the subject of “selective outrage” from the political to the personal.

    “I have no problem with wokeness. I have no problem with it at all. I’m all for social justice. I’m all for marginalized people getting their rights,” he said. “The thing I have a problem with is the selective outrage.” He then gave a definition of the phenomenon: ”One person does something they get canceled. Somebody else does the exact same thing… nothing. The kind of people that play Michael Jackson songs but won’t play R. Kelly. Same crime, but one of them just got better songs.” 

    In front of a background that resembled a cracked mirror (perhaps an allusion to the old adage “those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”), Rock riffed on selective outrage for an hour, telling funny jokes about Lulu Lemon, the January 6th capitol rioters, and Meghan Markle. His second and third references to the Oscar slap occurred in two separate bits about rappers Snoop Dogg and Jay Z. “The last thing I need is another mad rapper,” Rock said as the punch lines to both jokes, foreshadowing what was to come with Smith. But rather than dive straight into the juiciest material of the night, the comedian saved the best for last, and instead regaled the audience with personal stories. Rock joked about how he had a hand in getting his daughter, Lola Rock, getting expelled from her private high school. “I need you to kick her black ass out of this school,” he said. “I need my daughter to learn her lesson before so she doesn’t end up on only fans.” He also opened up about his recent exploits as a single man post-divorce from his wife of 18 years, Malaak Compton-Rock. “Ladies I will lick your ass and never call you again,” he said. “But if we hold hands, you my girl.”

    Eventually, Rock spoke candidly about all things Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.  For anyone who’s been keeping abreast of Rock’s comedy, it was clear that he’s been workshopping material for this show, with many of the jokes that he’s reportedly told about the Slap making their way into his set tonight. “Did it hurt? It still hurts. I got ‘Summertim’ ringing in my ears,” he said, retelling a joke he recently tried out at The Comedy Cellar.  “I know you can’t tell on camera, but Will Smith is significantly bigger than me,” said Rock, another joke he tested at The Cellar. “Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You never seen me do a move with my shirt off. If I’m in a movie getting open heart surgery I have on a sweater.”

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Roasts “Fragile Snowflake” Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him

    Jimmy Kimmel Roasts “Fragile Snowflake” Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him

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    For someone who complained a lot about snowflakes, Donald Trump seems pretty delicate. Per a Rolling Stone report, the former president was once so insecure about Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes that his administration tried to pressure Disney into censoring Jimmy Kimmel Live! On Monday night’s episode of his late-night talk show, Kimmel ripped into Trump, calling him  “President Karen” and pointing out the ex-president’s hypocrisy.  

    According to Rolling Stone, Trump was so upset about Kimmel’s jokes in 2018 that Trump allegedly instructed his staffers at the White House to call Disney, ABC’s parent company, and told them to “rein in the…ABC host.” Per the report, at least two separate phone calls meant to “convey the severity of [Trump’s] fury with Kimmel to Disney” were made, and news of these phone calls apparently became the talk of Washington.

    Naturally, Kimmel had an absolute field day with the news. “President Karen demanded to speak to my manager,” Kimmel quipped at the top of his Monday night monologue. “You’d think the guy who fathered Eric and Don Jr. would know how to handle jokes, but I guess not.”

    Kimmel homed in on Trump’s narcissism, noting that the former president often relishes being the center of attention. “The first time Donald Trump ever tries to stop someone from talking about him on television, and it’s me,” said Kimmel. He then made an allusion to Trump paying off adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 as part of a settlement about their alleged 2006 sexual encounter. (Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.) “Usually when he wants somebody to stop talking about him, he pays them $130,000,” Kimmel said, “but he wanted me to do it for nothing!”

    Kimmel continued making fun of Trump for his “Trumper tantrum,” wondering aloud which joke of his pushed the former president’s buttons the most. “Maybe it was the time I had Stormy Daniels look at a plate of carrots and size them up, and she picked the little one,” he said. He then launched into a list of practically every nickname he has used for Trump on the show, including but not limited to “Tan’y Soprano,” “Mar a Lardo,” and “Pumpkin McPornhumper.” 

    “I only have 100 more,” Kimmel quipped to a round of applause, before launching into more nicknames for the former president. 

    “What a fragile little snowflake. What a blowhard. He’s a blowhard and a snowflake,” Kimmel joked. “He’s a blowflake.”

    Kimmel went on to draw a parallel between Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, two of the only people who have tried to censor him. “When you think of all the people who I’ve regularly made fun of, it’s a lot of people. The only two who’ve tried to stop me are Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene who actually called the cops on me,” he said. “I made fun of OJ [Simpson] one thousand times; he hasn’t tried to kill me once.”

    Toward the end of his roast of Trump, Kimmel called out the former president’s well-documented history of insults. “He makes fun of disabled journalists. He calls our veterans prisoners of war, even losers,” said Kimmel. “He insults his opponents, his friends, his family. But if I point out that he’s so fat they renamed the plane Air Force Wonder Bread, I’m the bad guy?”

    Kimmel even found a way to get in a dig at Trump’s reportedly crumbling relationship with his wife, Melania Trump. “Maybe this is why Donald and Melania sleep in separate bedrooms: She was laughing too hard at my monologue at night.” 

    Kimmel ended the segment by pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump and news channels like Fox News that claim to champion free speech. “Joking aside, this is a blatant abuse of power. I wonder if Fox News—you know, they’re always screaming about censoring comedians—will they defend me on this? I doubt it.” He then played a clip package featuring the ex-president regaling the virtues of free speech. “It’s almost like he’s a hypocrite.” 

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Chelsea Handler Wants to Host ‘The Daily Show’—And Maybe She Should.

    Chelsea Handler Wants to Host ‘The Daily Show’—And Maybe She Should.

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    Amidst a mass exodus from late-night television that’s brought an end to Full Frontal With Samantha Bee and Desus & Mero, as well as the exits of James Corden from The Late Late Show and Trevor Noah from The Daily Show, it’s easy to wonder who even wants to be a late-night host anymore. The answer to that would be Chelsea Handler—who made her debut behind the Daily Show desk on Monday, and also became the first guest host to openly pitch herself as a permanent replacement. 

    Comedy Central’s flagship program took a five-week hiatus after Noah’s sudden exit before welcoming guest hosts Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, and D.L. Hughley. Each of them played it cool, demurring or downright denying any permanent Daily Show aspirations. But since guest hosting a week of Jimmy Kimmel Live! last summer, Handler says she’s ready to return to the daily TV grind. “Walking into a perfectly run operation, having an A team and me being on my A game—it was just great, every aspect of it. I loved it. It made me remember why I do that, and why I want to do it again,” the longtime Chelsea Lately host recently said on The Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be taking the news, regurgitating it out for everybody on a regular basis. That’s what I’m good for.”

    Handler helmed her E! series from 2017 to 2014 and was floated as a possible replacement for Dave Letterman before moving on to Netflix’s first talk show, a self-titled venture that lasted just two seasons, from 2016 to 2017. In the lead-up to her week at The Daily Show, Handler positioned herself as the best of both hosting worlds: a legacy pick with years of experience and a breath of fresh air in an industry that’s still somehow male-dominated. “There are too many white men doing the same job,” Handler recently told Variety, adding, “I thought I made a real dent by doing my show and proving to people that you can be a woman and host a late night show, but it seems like people need to be reminded one more time. And I might be that person to remind them.”

    For all of her pre-show campaigning, Handler casually sauntered onto the Daily Show stage Monday night, offering a sheepish but warm “Hey, guys” as the warm-up comedian roasted the crowd. She appeared understandably nervous but in high spirits as she introduced her brother Roy, seated in the front row, before promising the audience was “gonna fucking love” the show. (Some audience members seemed predisposed to enjoy the episode—including a few excited fans I spotted watching clips of Handler’s standup before she entered the studio.) 

    “This is where I get to spend a week talking shit about all the wackjobs and hot messes out there, but I do it sitting behind a desk because I’m a professional,” Handler said in her signature deadpan, shaking off most of the visible nerves at the top of the show. She then shuffled through the day’s headlines—starting off with the Chinese balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. “As you heard, this balloon was the size of three buses,” Handler began. “And for the rich people out there who don’t know what a bus is, they’re those big yellow vehicles that bring Matt Gaetz’s girlfriends to school.”

    Handler gamely sparred with correspondent Dulcé Sloan and appeared in a clip spoofing celebrities who take diabetic drug Ozempic for weight loss. (“I need it to host The Daily Show!” she said before tackling a man to the ground.) But it was her skewering of the aforementioned “wackjobs and hot messes” that earned Handler’s biggest laughs. 

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Fallon Each Have Their Own George Santos

    Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Fallon Each Have Their Own George Santos

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    Lastly, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon welcomed Jon Lovitz. This is a bit of inspired casting, considering Lovitz used to do a whole character based on a pathological liar. (“Yeah, that’s the ticket” was, indeed, a bit of a catchphrase back in the day.) At first, the gags come off a little simple (just listing famous stuff and claiming to have been behind it all), but Lovitz wins points by doing a weird James Mason-like voice that sounds nothing like George Santos, then saying he created gravity. 

    Rarely do we have an opportunity to do such a clear compare and contrast between the three big late night shows (some of the individual jokes are almost the same), so we should take advantage. 

    In this reporter’s opinion, Kimmel’s staff was the most creative in the writing and physical production. Nelson Franklin had to hit his marks and choreograph with the camera while keeping a straight face—that ain’t easy! However, his take on the material, perhaps because so much else is going on, is the most straightforward. Guillén, on the other hand, really sinks his teeth into it, and is clearly enjoying camping-it-up. Some of the individual jokes, however, are repetitive and kinda fall flat. Colbert, however, is phenomenal, as ever, as the straight man. 

    The Tonight Show’s play, however, has a bit of magic pixie dust. (Also, Fallon-as-interviewer wisely keeps it simple.) Maybe it’s just my nostalgia for Lovitz, but the fact that it goes completely bonkers by the end, with the 65-year-old comic singing “My Way,” is some quality old-school schtick—a throwback to Borscht Belt humor Santos’s probably-not-actually-Jewish grandparents would have loved. 

    Assuming this scandal continues, we’re all lucky to have three game comic performers ready to help the nation get through this. 

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    Jordan Hoffman

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  • Yes, Prince Harry Watches (and ‘Fact-Checks’) ‘The Crown’

    Yes, Prince Harry Watches (and ‘Fact-Checks’) ‘The Crown’

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    Royals—as we’re rapidly discovering—are just like us. Since the bombshell release of Spare, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir about life within and beyond the palace walls, he’s provided relatable details on everything from familial strife to his affinity for Friends. (He’s “a Chandler,” by the way.) On Tuesday night, the Duke of Sussex stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where he revealed that he also binge-watches The Crown with Google open.

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    Between anecdotes about brotherly betrayal and his frostbitten penis, Harry admitted, “Yes, I have actually watched The Crown,” clarifying, “the older stuff and the more recent stuff.” (So…all of it?) When asked if he did any “fact-checking” while watching the series, he replied, “Yes, I do, actually. Which, by the way, is another reason why it’s so important that history has it right.” Alas, Harry didn’t do any live corrections on the depiction of his father, King Charles, and stepmother Queen Consort Camilla’s infamous Tampongate phone call or Elizabeth Debicki’s portrayal of his late mother, Princess Diana.  

    He previously confessed to watching the Emmy-winning show about his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, during another late-night appearance. “They don’t pretend to be news—it’s fictional, but it’s loosely based on the truth,” Harry told James Corden (who gets a shout-out in Spare’s acknowledgments section). “It gives you a rough idea about…what the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else—what can come from that.”

    The estranged royal continued, “I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, my wife, or myself. That is obviously fiction—take it how you will—but this is being reported on as fact because it’s supposedly news. I have a real issue with that.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Brendan Fraser Names The Late Yankees Icon Who Yelled Expletives On His Film Set

    Brendan Fraser Names The Late Yankees Icon Who Yelled Expletives On His Film Set

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    Actor Brendan Fraser can’t forget a not-safe-for-work encounter he and a movie crew had with late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the ’90s.

    Fraser, who has been making the press rounds for his recent movie “The Whale,” reflected on his movie “The Scout” during an interview with late night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday.

    “The Mummy” actor said he watched the iconic owner, known as “The Boss,” lose it as the crew on the set of his 1994 movie “The Scout” filmed at the old Yankee Stadium.

    “George Steinbrenner, it was his house… I can remember shooting a contract-signing scene and someone started shouting profanity and it’s George Steinbrenner and he’s shouting down between third and home plate going ‘Get that shit off of my infield,’” Fraser said.

    “And these guys are freaking out because they’re dragging cables across the grass and he’s like… he was not happy about it at all. Not happy about it, had to go calm him down but he had a point.”

    Fraser, who plays the fictional Yankees pitcher Steve Nebraska in “The Scout,” also told Kimmel that he filmed the movie during the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike and players ribbed him that he was the “only guy getting paid to wear the pinstripes” that year.

    You can watch more of Fraser’s interview with Kimmel below.

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  • Dave Chappelle Turns ‘SNL’ Into ‘Chappelle’s Show’

    Dave Chappelle Turns ‘SNL’ Into ‘Chappelle’s Show’

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    It was Chappelle’s Show last night on Saturday Night Live. For all the glib and tedious talk of cancel culture, it’s hard to remember a host ever being granted that much power over an episode. One has to believe host Dave Chappelle got to hand-select Brooklyn’s hero duo Black Star, composed of Chappelle’s Midnight Miracle podcast’s co-hosts Talib Kweli and Mos Def, as his musical guests. Throughout the episode, Chappelle repeatedly took the stage to introduce sketches, echoing the format of his former Comedy Central show and reminding the audience of just who’s in charge. He was also a man apart in the sketches themselves, like in the Potato Hole bit in which his blues musician sits separately from the obtuse white morning news team schooling them on the historical resilience of Black people in the face of white oppression.

    Has there ever been a full 15 minutes given over to a monologue? Chappelle came through the doors to Lenny Pickett’s saxophone playing the aching opening notes of “Try a Little Tenderness.” He wasn’t holding his usual cigarette, which somehow left him appearing vulnerable, like perhaps he understood that he was a guest in someone else’s house and should follow their rules.

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    He started his monologue by reading a prepared statement with a sentiment that many of us reposted on our Instagrams in the last couple of weeks following the most recent explosion of Kanye West’s mouth. “I denounce anti-Semitism in all its form. And I stand with my friends in the Jewish community.” One can believe he means every word, even as Chappelle’s face slid into a smirk. “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.” He went in on how his friend broke the most unspoken and serious of Hollywood rules: “Two words in the English language you should never say together in sequence and those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews.’” Oy.

    For the next 48 hours, Chappelle’s monologue will certainly be blasted and defended by Twitter’s most strident of voices. (One moment we can all agree on was his terrific wincing over Herschel Walker: “I don’t want to speak badly on him because he’s Black,” he said. “But I have to admit, he’s observably stupid.”) I like to think (I choose to think?) that Chappelle truly was wrestling with what he called “the rules of perception” when it comes to identity and power. “I’ve been to Hollywood,” he said. “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri. Doesn’t mean we run the place.” For me, that joke is less concerned who runs Hollywood and more calling out when numbers don’t add up to power.

    “It shouldn’t be scary to talk,” Chappelle said towards the end of his monologue. “About anything.” Maybe he was alluding to the specter of cancel culture and Black superstars’ lost sneaker deals. “Now you see Kanye walking around LA barefoot with his chain out,” he said. “This guy lost a billion and a half dollars in one day.” Kanye West is a sick narcissist who once made brilliant music. He didn’t tell jokes that got him in trouble. He’s devolved into the joke. That’s on him, and his team of medical professionals. I imagine that the fear Chappelle referenced was more about the fact that he was attacked on stage last May, not long after his friend Chris Rock was slapped at the Oscars over a mediocre joke. I hope it’s not just that he finds people’s noisy wrestling with his comedy to be tedious and frustrating. Being a fan of his can in fact be a beautiful struggle.

    At the end of the episode, the stage looked less crowded than usual during Chappelle’s goodbyes and good nights. He stood flanked by his friends Kweli, Mos Def, and Rawlings, like a Black Man’s wall in front of a cultural penalty kick. Ice-T, who wasn’t there for the goodbye but appeared in the House of the Dragon sketch, tweeted “Somebody said they’re going to CANCEL me after doing SNL with Dave Chappelle. LOL! These MFs have been trying to Cancel me for over 30yrs!”

    There had been reports in the last week that some SNL writers were boycotting Chappelle’s show because of his history of jokes about transgender people and the digging in of his heels when called to task. Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, and Molly Kearney, SNL’s first non-binary cast member, didn’t stand up on the stage with Chappelle, nor did they appear in any sketches with him throughout the episode. That’s not cancel culture. That’s a choice not to stand behind someone they believe to be unsafe. Yang, who appeared in the cold open and then bounced for the rest of the show, posted a picture of himself on his Instagram stories last night. In it, he’s wearing a t-shirt for the punk band Against Me!, beneath the cover art for the song “Black Me Out” off of their Transgender Dysphoria Blues album. Some lyrics from that song:

    I don’t ever want to talk that way again
    I don’t want to know people like that anymore
    As if there was an obligation
    As if I owed you something

    There is something brave and tender about people asserting their right to speak and joke and respond and react and reject in ways their experience sees fit. It’s all so messy, making choices and then living with them. We want who we believe to be the good guys to be all together on the same team. They can’t always be.

    Keke Palmer to the rescue after a brief break, hosting SNL’s next episode on December 3.

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    Karen Valby

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