A breath of fresh air, am I right?
I mean, it’s pretty tough to get excited about awards shows these days, whether they’re country music, my usual forte, the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, or even sports. Watching woke celebrities pander and virtue signal, basking in the glow of their own self-righteousness, lecturing the everyday American people wo are watching at home about their various social causes… forget it. Of course, we all remember Ricky Gervais’ 2020 Golden Globes monologue, at the peak of the woke insanity. It’s arguably the best awards show monologue of all time, and he absolutely nailed it at the end:
“If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech, all right? You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world, most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. If you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your God and f*** off. Ok? It’s already three hours long.”
Can I get an amen? You know what, a little off topic, but why not watch the whole thing:
I digress…
Anyways, comedian Shane Gillis is the first and only host to give Ricky a run for his money in recent memory when he hosted ESPN’s annual ESPYs awards last night.
Of course, the ESPYs are sports awards, and athletes tend to be much more down to Earth than the likes of Hollywood, but Shane wasted no time making sure that the a** of every executive and personality at Disney and ESPN was puckered up nice and tight.
Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, Aaron Rodgers, Caitlin Clark, Megan Rapinoe (which was HILARIOUS), Bill Belichick and his 24 year old girlfriend, nobody was off limits. But Shane’s funniest joke was an absolute masterclass in trolling, hand delivered to the WNBA, and the pandering that comes with it. While doing your standard “so and so is here” part of an awards show monologue, Shane mentioned that “4-time WNBA All-Star, Brittany Hicks is here, give it up for Brittany everybody.”
And naturally, the crowd roared with thunderous applause… the most anyone clapped since Shane walked on stage.
Only problem… Brittany isn’t a 4-time WNBA All-Star, and she’s not even in the WNBA. She doesn’t even play professional sports…
“I’m joking around, that’s my friend’s wife. I knew none of you knew WNBA players.”
Absolutely legendary.
His friend in the audience was fellow comedian, Matt McCusker, and his wife is actually named, Brittany Hicks, but she’s not a WNBA player, she’s a business woman and podcast host. And of course, the crowd didn’t like that, but both Matt and Brittany were dying. As was Druski, another comedian… you know, people who actually laugh at stuff.
Shane crushed it, full stop, and the only people who didn’t like it were… well exactly who you’d expect. The Sarah Spains of the world, New York Magazine, the she/hers with the Ukraine and Palestine flags in the bio… those folks. Somewhere Megan Rapinoe was at home punching air.
Here’s the full monologue, enjoy it in all its entirety, in all of its splendor… we don’t get many this good:
