Judd Apatow Slams Trump, Musk and Bezos in DGA Awards Monologue


Judd Apatow took aim at President Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, the “It Ends With Us” litigation spree and himself in his opening monologue Saturday at the 77th annual DGA Awards.

Apatow, of course, riffed on how the country has taken a sharp turn to the right since the last DGA Awards, and he gently poked fun at Hollywood for its eager embrace of diversity and boundary-pushing issues that are now in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump and his far-right brigade of reformers.

“My new pronouns are ‘We’re fucked,’ ” Apatow said from the stage of the Beverly Hilton. The multihyphenate filmmaker and TV producer hosted the DGA Awards for the third year in a row, and the sixth time since 2018.

Commenting on how many rich and powerful figures have worked to curry favor with Trump, Apatow cracked, “I feel like I’m one compliment away from being Secretary of the Interior.”

Apatow speculated that he might have to change the tone of his film and TV endeavors to match the cultural moment. “Maybe I should make TV that MAGA people would like: ‘The Real Housewives of January 6,’ ” he said. After getting a big reaction, he leaned into the microphone and deadpanned, “Note to self: Really make that show.”

Apatow talked about the box office success of “Wicked,” the Universal musical that became a juggernaut over the holiday season and has been an awards darling. “Usually to make this much money you have to sue Blake Lively,” Apatow said, a nod to the fierce battle over behavior on the set of the 2024 film “It Ends With Us” that erupted in December between star Blake Lively and director-star Justin Baldoni.

Apatow didn’t spare himself from barbs. “I’m what Mel Brooks would look like if he took ‘The Substance,’” in a nod to the Demi Moore psychological horror pic about an aging star who takes a form of youth serum.

On billionaire Elon Musk, Apatow noted his surprise when the owner of X posted a meme of a photo of Apatow’s 2008 comedy “Stepbrothers” starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Musk’s post stated “This is me and Jeff Bezos,” to which Apatow jabbed, “He doesn’t understand the premise of that film. It’s about two fucking morons.”

Apatow pointed to one of the common threads between Musk and Amazon founder and chairman Bezos — an interest in space. “One day [Musk’s] dream is going to come true. He’s going to go to Mars.” Apatow sketched out a scenario in which other Trump-related figures join him on a space flight: “RFK, Jeff Bezos, Brett Kavanaugh, Peter Thiel.”

In time, “We realize we don’t miss them. We didn’t need crypto currency. We don’t need AI. One day we look at the sky and we can see the skies,” he said. Apatow continued to paint a picture of a world returning to life as it was before the 2000s. “MTV starts playing music videos. Everyone’s got flip phones. Young men leave their basements and start flirting with girls.”

Among other changes, “Britney [Spears] puts a new record out and puts her father in a conservatorship. Pandas start fucking like crazy, creating millions of pandas. We all get a panda.”

After a few more fantastical ideas (“Kid Rock becomes a Democrat”), Apatow gets to the upshot: “By leaving earth, they made America great again,” he said.

Later in the show, while helping to usher presenters and winners on and off the stage, Apatow added a postscript joke aimed squarely at Musk, who is also the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla. As if making a public service announcement from the stage, Apatow told the audience: “If you’re the owner of the Tesla Cybertruck in the parking lot — please go fuck yourself.”

Apatow is a prolific producer who has fielded cutting edge movies (“The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” “Anchorman”), TV series (“The Larry Sanders Show,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Girls”) and of late has turned his lens to documentaries about influential pop culture figures including Garry Shandling, George Carlin and country-pop stars the Avett Brothers.

At present Apatow is working on a two-part documentary on the life and career of Mel Brooks for HBO, producing and co-directing with Michael Bonfiglio. He produced the 2024 feature docu “Stormy” about Stormy Daniels and the payoff scheme that led to the criminal conviction of President Donald Trump. Apatow also shepherded the offbeat buddy comedy feature “Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain” for Peacock last year. He worked with Billy Eichner on the pathbreaking rom-com “Bros,” released by Universal in 2022.



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