John Oliver has earned praise for his rants against powerful institutions over the years. However, his British finger-wagging wasn’t welcome at a certain muppet-filled gala.
During an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday, the Last Week Tonight host hilariously revealed that he was booed while hosting a Sesame Street gala (aka the Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala) after he took a jab at the event’s primary sponsor.
“Every year I do the Sesame Street gala,” he told Meyers. “So I mentioned it here because it’s so fun. And I thought, this would be nice. And I knew it was coming up. I was then booed at that gala.”
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“And I want you to think about how hard it is to make that happen,” he joked. “The theme of the evening is kindness. That’s not easy to do.”
Presumably, Oliver was referencing the 2023 gala in May where he was the evening’s special guest. One of the night’s honorees was Bank of America.
“They got a big sponsor,” Oliver explained. “They had Bank of America. [...] And I think they got Bank of America by making up this nonsense award they were going to give to one of the executives. I was going to go on after her. And she walked on, and she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about how appropriate it is that Bank of America and Sesame Street have teamed up tonight because we are two organizations built on kindness.’”
Oliver heard this questionable remark while he was waiting to go onstage and initially decided to let it go. Unfortunately, the executive reiterated Bank of America’s alleged “kindness” “three more times” within five minutes and he had to make a statement about the famously predatory bank.
“I snapped,” Oliver said. “And I walked out, and I said, ‘It’s been odd to hear talk of kindness from Bank of America, an institution that had the highest foreclosure rates since over the last 10 years.”
“Boos bouncing…” he said as the studio audience began applauding him. “Oh, that’s the opposite of the reaction in the room. And the worst thing, the thing that has imprinted itself on my memory [...] is Bert looking up at me with such disappointment in his eyes. Just ‘Why are you like this?’”
Oliver ended this hilarious anecdote by looking directly into the camera and begging the organization to have him back next year. “Sesame Street, have me back. I’ll be a good boy this time.”
