Another royal death, another performance by John Oliver in Late Night with Seth Meyers.
The comedian dropped out of the US talk show this week to address a joke he made about Queen Elizabeth II on his Emmy Award-winning show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which was censored in the UK.
Meyers pointed out that the last time Oliver was on his show was a few days after Prince Philip’s death in 2021. This time he appeared on the same day as the Queen’s funeral.
“When a senior royal dies, I come here,” Oliver joked. “Just click your heels three times and I’ll be here to give it the disrespect it deserves.”
He later defended a joke he made about the Queen’s death on his own show, which was cut off the air in the UK, something Meyers pointed out as “not quite a censorable joke”.
“All we said was that Britain is still mourning the shocking loss of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes. It’s literally no joke,” Oliver said. “Scientifically, it’s no joke. That’s just a fact with a kind of cocky inflection, that’s all.”
He continued: “They took it out, which is pretty s***ty. Because apparently all week we’ve been hearing that the Queen had an incredible sense of humor. Just non-stop. Oh, she was so funny “Seth, she was so funny. The queen, she – razor sharp.”
Oliver joked about a sketch the Queen made with Paddington Bear during her platinum anniversary.
“And there she was with Paddington. I’m watching a bear comically wearing her in that scene,” he joked. “She’s not giving that bear anything back. There’s one set of footprints in the sand, and it’s a paw. But she was a huge comedy fan.”
This story originally appeared on Decider and has been republished here with permission.