Another year, another roast, another Jeff Ross costume. Comedy Central’s “Roast of Bruce Willis” filmed on July 14 and premiered on July 29. This year provided us with the expected levels of savagery and reminders of bizarre celebrity incidents that no one has talked about since the ’90s. In case you missed it, here were some of the best lines from everyone on the dais.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
JGL isn’t the best roaster, but as a host he had about the same influence on the room as a warm glass of milk, and it oddly worked for him. That being said, he was able to deliver some funny quips when he wasn’t busy balancing the pH levels on stage:
- “Dennis may be the only person on the planet who is able to prevent a nuclear war, so I guess this is goodbye.”
- “Bruce Willis is what you get when you isolate the white part of Dwayne The Rock Johnson.”
- (To Bruce Willis): “We want you to have a good time tonight, but don’t get too comfortable up here because later we’re going to be replacing you with Ashton Kutcher.” After some hootin’ and hollerin’ from the audience, he continued, “relax, relax. Bruce gets along with him fine, he was even at Ashton and Demi’s wedding. His gift was a toaster and $90 million.”
- “They call [Dennis Rodman] the worm because he’s always on the sidewalk after it rains.”
Nikki Glaser
- (To Martha): “Seriously, congratulations on getting that Thai soccer team out of your vagina…and into your sweatshops.”
- (To Joseph Gordon Levitt): “I bet you eat pussy, but only with the crust cut off first.”
- “Ed looks to me like if a marionette became a boy and that boy became an asshole.”
Kevin Pollack
- The highlight of Pollack’s time was definitely his spot-on Christopher Walken impression, which turned into a bit about the Bruce Willis-backed restaurant franchise Planet Hollywood. “Walken” expressed his gratitude to Willis for being crucial in the establishment of his favorite restaurant (and planet); “Thank you, Bruce Willis, for having the vision and the courage to ask ‘hey! Who wouldn’t want to eat $40 potato skins in a booth next to the hat from Billy Bathgate?”
Cybill Shepherd
- “Lil Rel, I’m glad you’re here because I’ve been meaning to apologize for calling the police about your barbeque.”
- “I had the honor of playing Martha in two separate movies. I did my best, but the only one to truly capture Martha Stewart was the FBI.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el5i3CbXr_o
Lil Rel Howery
Lil Rel came up with a crumbled up piece of paper looking like he forgot to memorize his ninth-grade Spanish presentation, and it showed. Still, he was able to work in a few good lines.
- (To Willis and Ross): “Y’all two bald white motherfuc*ers look crazy as fu*k. Both of look like your on two different stages of cancer.”
Edward Norton
Ed dominated this roast. Everything that came out of his mouth was a highlight. It was obvious early in that Norton and Willis are real friends who love each other, not just showbiz associates, but Norton still thinks he’s an off-his-rocker diva. Here are just a few of the memorable things Ed had to say about his bald-headed buddy:
- “Can I say things like, ‘The #MeToo movement is ruining natural sexual dynamics,’ while I’m wearing a Make America Great Again hat and then go blow up a helicopter of Mexican extras dressed up as Middle Eastern terrorists, call that a twofer, and still have a bunch of liberal Hollywood agents call my agent the next morning and say they want to be in the Edward Norton business? I most definitely cannot.”
- Norton told the audience that Bruce opted out of living in a van with the cast of Moonrise Kingdom (Bill Murray and all) during production to rent out the Carnegie mansion. “When Wes said, ‘do you think Bruce understands that I really want this to be like repertory theater group?’ I said, ‘shut the fu*k up you long-haired pussy, that’s a fu*king movie star!'”
- “You have a perfect dick head.”
- Just when we thought that Norton was closing on a sentimental note, he spun it last minute and said, “I love you, or maybe I’m a very good actor and I’m just acting when I say that. You wouldn’t know the difference, and that’s the reason I love you.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWbCRsuDcpY
Martha Stewart
- “If you had told me back in the ’90s that Dennis Rodman would be negotiating a nuclear arms agreement in 2018, I would have said, ‘Dennis Rodman is alive in 2018?’”
- “Dom, I know your career never really took off, but if you just keep doing what you’ve been doing, I’m sure you’ll eventually be discovered…by your landlord two weeks after your heart attack.”
- “Nikki Glaser, you have it all – the name of a professional porn star and the body of an amateur porn star. You know I’m a big supporter of the Me Too Movement. But remember, Nikki, “me too” shouldn’t just be what a guy says to his friend when he tells him he had sex with Nikki Glaser.”
Dom Irrera
- Dom Irrera had great timing and made some hilariously accurate ad-libs about Edward Norton: “I’ve never seen anybody roast somebody else and talk about themselves with that kind of sincerity. What an arrogant motherfuc*er he is, Jesus Christ. I’d like to beat the fu*k out of him. This skinny little prick, I met him in the hall and he fu*kin’ blew me off. I never liked your work, I never liked you, and I gotta tell you, it’s an honor to meet you.” He later added, “he dated Courtney Love, but he never became famous enough to have him murdered.”
- “Jeff just bought a new house and staffed it with three personal chefs. The first two died of exhaustion.”
Dennis Rodman
Everything about this was surreal, and that’s only what wasn’t edited out. The consensus is that Rodman bombed, but he still got out some bizarre zingers.
- “If one more person calls Joseph a pu*sy again, I’m going to lick him for 20 minutes.” (Hopefully, this is also his reaction to criticism for a certain asshole-less dictator. Kimmy’s skin does always suspiciously silky smooth.)
- “Cybill Shepherd, it sounds like a disease that you get when you’re fu*king a sheep.”
Demi Moore
Willis’s ex-wife came out as a surprise guest, and her refreshingly playful demeanor kept the room fun and her daughters hysterically laughing at their table. Unsurprisingly, all the time she spent with Bruce over the last few decades provided her with plenty of material.
- “Every Christmas, right after he would have the girls go make him his special coffee with ‘medicine,’ I mean, he would come down the chimney in the wife-beater T-shirt, waving that gun saying ‘Yippee-ki-yay, motherfu*kers!'”
- “Scout wouldn’t say anything, but just last week he offered her $1,000 to change his diaper”
- “He got his career-breaking moment in Pulp Fiction. It seemed really odd at the time, I mean he’s a big action star doing a little indie film, but Bruce went over to Harvey Weinstein’s hotel, and I don’t know. He came back swinging that ball gag, and, man, he said, ‘I got the part!”
- “I just looked at our marriage like The Sixth Sense, you were dead the whole time!”
Jeff Ross
The roastmaster himself is at it again with more golden one-liners than we can list.
- “Bruce, we all wish you luck with your lawsuit against the Blue Man Group.”
- “I met Rumer, your daughter. I guess that’s the name your mom gives you when she’s not 100 percent sure who your father is.”
- “I’d make fun of you for your political aspirations, but the last time I did that the fu*ker actually became president.”
- “All night people are saying I look like [Bruce], but Cybill Shepherd looks like Bruce Jenner Willis. And Lil Rel looks like Bruce What You Talkin’ Bout Willis.”
- “How the fu*k are you a movie star? You look like a bouncer at a nursing home!”
- “Bruce Willis wants an Oscar so bad he’s slowly turning into one.”
- “Bruce Willis looks like Elmer Fudd if he hunted shitty scripts instead of wascally wabbits,”
- “Joseph starred in 3rd Rock from the Sun and Dennis Rodman smoked three rocks in front of his son.”
- “You think Kim Jong-Un is a nice guy, and he thinks you’re Scottie Pippen.”
- “My pal Lil Rel is here. So happy for you buddy, so happy. Congrats on all your success and your newest film Angry Birds 2. Good to see you’re not selling out. What do you play, Jim Crow?”
- Ross closed with, “I can’t wait to see your next project, Die Hard 6: Natural Causes.”
Bruce Willis
- “[Ed Norton has] rubbed more people the wrong way than Harvey Weinstein.”
- “An Italian job is also when you titty fu*k Don Irrera.”
- “[Kevin Pollack] made more money doing Arnold Schwarzenegger than his maid.”
- The legend delivered a perfect line to close off the evening: “I did this roast for one reason and for one reason only — to settle something once and for all. Now, please, listen very carefully. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, it’s a Bruce Willis movie. So yippie-ki-yay to all of you motherfu*kers.”