Monty Python icon Eric Idle has said that he’d be “proud to be thrown out” of Donald Trump’s United States as he’d be in “very select company”.
The comedian and actor, 83, best known for his roles in the Monty Python films Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979), has delivered a blistering takedown of the US presidents, whom he has branded a “treasonous monster”.
Idle made the remarks to The Guardian during a unique interview, which featured questions from Steve Coogan, David Mamet and Eddie Izzard. Responding to a question by comedian Tracey Ullman about Trump, Idle said that he didn’t find anything “funny” about the president and that the POTUS has “no end of capacity for stupidity”.
He continued: “Every summer I go to France because I can’t stand the news. I can’t stand hearing about that man every minute of every day. They’re completely obsessed by him in the US. It’s like they’re addicted to him.”
Later in the interview, Idle answered a question from Chicago actor Catherine Zeta-Jones about whether there is a subject he still dreams of turning into a joke. “It’s very scary now because they’re stopping comedians at the border and if they have pictures of Trump on their phone they don’t like, they don’t let them in,” he replied.
Idle, who lives in Los Angeles, added: “I’ve had a green card for about 28 years. I’d be proud to be thrown out because I’d be in very select company. The last English comedian to be thrown out of America for political reasons was Charlie Chaplin.”
Chaplin was exiled from the US in 1952 over allegations he was a communist sympathiser and scrutiny of his private life. The actor and director later settled in Switzerland, having lived in the US for 42 years.
It comes after Idle’s Monty Python colleague, Terry Gilliam, claimed that Trump had “destroyed” satire, and inadvertently derailed his new movie, a satire about the apocalypse called The Carnival at the End of Days.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gilliam argued that the return of Trump has significantly affected the state of humour by challenging “woke” ideals.
“I think Trump has changed things considerably,” he said. “He’s turned the world upside down. I don’t know if people are going to be laughing more, but they’re probably less frightened to laugh.”
“[Trump has] f***ed up the latest film I was working on,” the director added. “Because it was a satire about the last several years when things were going as they were. He’s turned it upside down. So he’s killed my movie.”
