The Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis isn’t scheduled to air until July 29th, yet many of the best jokes and surprises from Saturday night’s taping in Los Angeles are already making the rounds online. From roast master Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hosting duties to a surprise appearance by Willis’ ex-wife, Demi Moore, it sounds like Comedy Central may have another successful roast on its hands. The latter was an especially fun moment, according to those who were in attendance, as Moore’s arrival on the roasting stage wasn’t announced until right before she approached the podium.
“I look at our marriage like The Sixth Sense,” she said. “You were dead the whole time.” Not to be outdone, Moore had plenty more to say to her ex-husband:
“I was married to Bruce for the first three Die Hard movies, which makes sense because the last two sucked,” Moore quipped. “Bruce considered the end of our marriage his biggest failure. Bruce, don’t be so hard on yourself, you had much bigger failures. Planet Hollywood, Hudson Hawk… campaigning for Michael Dukakis, turning down Clooney’s role in Ocean’s Eleven to focus on playing the harmonica.”
It was all in good fun, of course, for Deadline points out that “Willis’ daughters Rumer, Tallulah, and Scout and his wife Emma Heming were in the audience laughing at his expense” the whole time. Even when, amazingly, a “rather obnoxious Dennis Rodman… stumbled through his ribald set.”
Aside from Moore’s surprise roasting, here are some of the evening’s best jokes:
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt: “Bruce Willis is what you get if you drain the white part of Dwayne Johnson.”
- Nikki Glaser: “Your daughters must be so proud of their father, Ashton Kutcher.”
- Glaser: “This is a real personal moment for me, to be here roasting my dead cousin’s second-favorite action star. You had an amazing action film career until Jason Statham started balding.”
- Cybill Shepherd: “Hollywood wouldn’t be Hollywood if they didn’t reward a man for aging into mediocrity.”
- Kevin Pollak: “If you wanted to be humiliated, clearly we both know you could’ve just released another singing album.”
- Jeff Ross: “Bruce Willis used to be a big action star. Now when you look in the mirror, you see dead people. I hope this roast doesn’t end with you realizing your career was dead the entire time.”
- Martha Stewart: “Bruce and I live in the same town of Bedford. He has a beautiful house and the interior design is amazing. He wanted everything inside to look mid-century modern, except his new wife.”
- Dom Irrera: “Comedy Central roasts only the best people. Bruce, Donald Trump, that guy from Baywatch.”
- Bruce Willis: “Joseph played a younger me in Looper. He couldn’t pull it off. There is one actor who successfully played me. It was Demi Moore.”
- Willis: “Cybill, it’s so great to be back on TV with you, honey, on another show starring me.”
(Via Entertainment Weekly, Deadline and USA Today)
