Conan O’Brien promised that he would be staying apolitical at this year’s Oscars. But he couldn’t help taking a couple of digs at MAGA in his opening monologue.
“I should warn you, tonight could get political,” the host said from the stage Sunday night. “And if that makes you uncomfortable, there’s an alternate Oscars hosted by Kid Rock at the Dave & Busters down the street.”
MAGA’s Turning Points USA infamously staged an alternate Super Bowl halftime show opposite Bad Bunny’s main event, which was plagued by technical difficulties and was watched by a small fraction of the massive audience who watched the Puerto Rican superstar.
The rest of O’Brien’s jokes stayed more focused on the nominated films and actors—including an early burn of Marty Supreme’s Timothée Chalamet for his dismissive comments about ballet and opera.
But he did briefly return to the Trump administration’s biggest scandal when he noted that this year is the first time since 2012 that no British people are nominated for Best Actor or Best Actress.”
“A British spokesperson commented, ‘Yeah, well, at least we arrest our pedophiles,’” the host joked, referring to the arrest of the former Prince Andrew while the American men implicated by the Epstein files walk free.
A joke about the plot of another Best Picture nominee felt like it was aimed at both sides of the aisle: “In Hamnet, Shakespeare’s wife gives birth by herself in the woods. Or what we call in America: Affordable health care.”
When the audience let out a groan, he added, “Too real for you, huh?”
After the first commercial break, O’Brien got in one more brutal Trump joke when he welcomed the audience back to the “Has a Small Penis Theater.”
“Let’s see him put his name on that,” the host added, burning the man behind the “Trump Kennedy Center” without even saying his name.
