The Western Journal Hollywood might want to start listening to Ricky Gervais – it seems like a lot of Americans are.
The British comedian made himself an enemy of the movie moguls but endeared himself to millions of Americans Sunday night when he used his platform hosting the Golden Globes to lecture the glitterati in front of him on what viewers didn’t want to hear from them.
“If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech,” Gervais said on the ceremony aired by NBC. “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. So, if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your God and f**k off.”
Those words and others from Gervais’ monologue didn’t make Gervais popular to the crowd inside the Beverly Hilton, but television viewers around the country no doubt appreciated it.
As numbers on social media Tuesday showed, Gervais’ speech was still a hit with millions of viewers in the hours and days after the ceremony ended.
On Monday, The Daily Caller reported, NBC’s YouTube video of Gervais’ speech had 2.6 million views — greater than the 2.3 million registered by all other clips from the event combined.
By Tuesday afternoon, all those numbers had risen, but Gervais’ popularity only kept outpacing the numerous other winners — led by huge names like Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt.
The Gervais YouTube video had 8.6 million views. The rest of the field combined had about 5.2 million.
The numbers were similar on Twitter, according to The Daily Caller. On Monday, Gervais’ speech had been viewed 7.1 million times compared to the 4.1 million views of the other videos combined, the website reported.
By Tuesday, Gervais’ speech had been viewed by 9.6 million Twitter users.
If you’re not one of those 9.6 million, check it out here:
Ricky Gervais kicks off The #GoldenGlobes. pic.twitter.com/ZSdqiWMudx
— NBC Entertainment (@nbc) January 6, 2020