{"id":47159,"date":"2025-08-06T06:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T06:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/47159\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T06:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T06:18:08","slug":"john-oliver-shares-his-blunt-reaction-to-jay-lenos-politics-in-comedy-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/47159\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Shares His Blunt Reaction To Jay Leno’s Politics-In-Comedy Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cLast Week Tonight<\/a>\u201d host \u2014 in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> published Tuesday \u2014 was asked about his success with \u201chaving a point of view\u201d on his show before addressing Leno, who has suggested that comics should focus on the \u201cwhole\u201d audience, rather than alienating some of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to take a hard pass on taking comedic advice from Jay Leno,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s remarks arrive over six years after he ripped Leno\u2019s calls for a return to a bit more \u201ccivility\u201d in late night TV, advising \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d host to \u201cgo fuck\u201d himself<\/a> and highlighting his history of relentless jokes aimed at Monica Lewinsky (Leno has since declined<\/a> that he targeted her on his program).<\/p>\n

Oliver, when asked whether late-night shows should \u201cstill try to be for everyone,\u201d explained why comedy \u201ccan\u2019t be for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho thinks that way? Executives?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inherently subjective. So, yeah, when you do stand-up, some people try to play to a broader audience, which is completely legitimate. Others decide not to, which is equally legitimate. I guess I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a question of what you should do because I don\u2019t think comedy is prescriptive in that way. It\u2019s just what people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s comments come weeks after CBS canceled<\/a> \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert,\u201d a move that critics have speculated<\/a> was done for political reasons (the network has claimed that it was \u201cpurely a financial decision,\u201d with subsequent<\/a> reports<\/a> indicating the show was facing financial challenges).<\/p>\n

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Oliver told THR that his show, which is set to air on HBO through 2026<\/a>, \u201cclearly comes from a point of view,\u201d although he stressed that most of the \u201clong stories\u201d covered on the program aren\u2019t party-adjacent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that these don\u2019t have a point of view in them. Of course they do,\u201d he said. But I hope a lot of them actually reach across people\u2019s political persuasions. You want people to at least be able to agree on the problem, even if you disagree on what the solution to it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d host \u2014 in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday \u2014 was asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,27523,12441,17124,32542,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-47159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jay-leno","12":"tag-john-oliver","13":"tag-late-night","14":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}