Hello, internet. Is everyone OK? Because Amy Schumer says that after some people got enraged by her badly timed joke about Kirsten Dunst being an Oscars seat-filler, she received enough disturbing “death threats” that the authorities got involved.
“The Secret Service reached out to me,” the comedian, who co-hosted this year’s Academy Awards, told Howard Stern on Wednesday. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I think you have the wrong number. This is Amy, not Will [Smith].’”
OK, so maybe that’s not such a great joke either. (Amy, c’mon, just stop. We really enjoyed “Life & Beth” and you’re ruining it.) Perhaps realising this, Schumer then back-pedaled a bit and said she was joking.
“Not that I want Will to get death threats,” she clarified. (Smith, you may recall, was involved in a bit of an Oscars controversy himself.)
Schumer told Stern about the kinds of threats she received.
“The misogyny is unbelievable,” she said. “They were like, ‘You can’t ― who do you think you are to disrespect Kirsten Dunst like that?’”
According to Schumer, the joke kicked up enough of a ruckus that she and Dunst both posted statements on social media, letting people know that the bit — in which Schumer pretended to mistake Dunst for an Oscars seat-filler and then pulled her out of her chair — was orchestrated.
Schumer confirmed to Stern that she “did reach out to people that I was going to joke about before [the Oscars] and make sure it was OK with them.”
This included Leonardo DiCaprio ― the living embodiment of the “Dazed and Confused” line “I get older, they stay the same age.” The Oscar winner was apparently totally cool with the quip Schumer made about him.
During the March 27 awards show, Schumer took a jab at the “Don’t Look Up” star, who is famously just as committed to environmental advocacy as he is to dating models in their 20s.
“Leonardo DiCaprio, what can I even say about him?” Schumer said during the awards show. “He’s done so much to fight climate change and leave behind a cleaner, greener planet for his girlfriends.”
Schumer told Stern that when she approached DiCaprio about the joke, his response was “Go ahead.”
Well, gee, what a good sport. We’re so glad that DiCaprio, 47, can continue to happily perpetuate the idea that women close to his age are unappealing. Meanwhile, Schumer, who is 40, receives death threats for a bad joke.