Stephen Colbert knows a thing or two about character work. For years, the Late Show host wasn’t Stephen Colbert; he was “Stephen Colbert,” a self-described “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot” who called Bill O’Reilly “papa bear” and wrote the book, I Am America (And So Can You!). But the Colbert character has (mostly) been retired, unlike “Alex Jones,” a shirt-ripping maniac played by the real Alex Jones, according to Jones’ lawyer.
The InfoWars conspiracy theorist is currently embroiled in a custody case with his ex-wife, Kelly Jones, who claims he’s “not a stable person” (no kidding). “He says he wants to break Alec Baldwin’s neck,” she continued. “He wants J-Lo to get raped.” But Jones’ attorney, Randall Wilhite, asserts his client is “playing a character” like “a performance artist,” and that evaluating “Alex Jones,” as opposed to Alex Jones, would be “like judging Jack Nicholson in a custody dispute based on his performance as the Joker in Batman.”
Lawyer’d?
On Monday’s Late Show, Colbert empathized with Jones, admitting he feels for him. “Everybody knows that for many years I played a satirical right-wing character, OK?” he said. Then, the pivot: “This happened to me all time, when I played my right-wing character, talk radio host Tuck Buckford.” It’s only a matter of time before your uncle is sharing Buckford memes on Facebook.
