- The Washington Times - Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Comedian Ricky Gervais defended his Golden Globes monologue Wednesday by noting the most obvious fact — he is a liberal himself.

The atheist comic, whose Twitter profile describes himself as a “Godless Ape” and whose Sunday monologue also tied the Catholic Church to pedophilia, noted in his Wednesday tweet that the point of comedy, particularly emceeing at awards ceremonies, is to poke fun at the attendees, not to stroke them.

“I didn’t roast Hollywood for being a bunch of liberals. I myself am a liberal. Nothing wrong with that. I roasted them for wearing their liberalism like a medal,” he wrote on Twitter to his 14 million followers.

Mr. Gervais’s monologue at Sunday’s show was criticized in such left-wing outlets as Slate for its perceived conservatism in criticizing woke Hollywood actors as hypocritical and uninformed.

“I’m such a snowflake, liberal, I can’t even really hate them for it. But my job is to take the piss. I did that,” Mr. Gervais concluded.

Wednesday evening’s tweets were at least the third time the British comic, best known for his starring role in the original version of “The Office,” has taken to social media to defend his monologue. He also has repeatedly retweeted articles defending his hosting the show and criticizing the offense-takers.

On Monday, he ridiculed the notion that “teasing huge corporations, and the richest, most privileged people in the world be considered right wing.”

And early Wednesday, he pinned as his top tweet a four-point post about offense-taking, political labels and comedy.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.

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