John Oliver’s Dark Joke About Princess Diana That Shocked ‘Last Week Tonight’ Audience
John Oliver’s Princess Diana joke was met with an expectedly mixed reaction from the audience.
John Oliver, the celebrated host of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO, recently made royal headlines with a rather dark and shocking joke that left his studio audience visibly stunned. While the episode followed its usual eclectic formula, featuring standard segments, a monologue, midterm campaign ads, and even former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft city, Oliver's bit took a uniquely controversial turn when he made a joke based on the 'People's Princess,' Princess Diana.
After discussing the Secret Service and its heavy influence on pop culture, Oliver admitted how startled he was by the trailer for Olympus Has Fallen. The clip from the trailer showed the president and the first lady are involved in a devastating car accident on a bridge. The scene showed the ‘first lady’ was stuck to the seat of the car, culminating in her plunging into an icy river below. Following this grim footage, Oliver deadpanned, “I’m sure she’s fine!” which was met with some laughter from the audience.
However, what he said next delivered a truly savage punchline. Oliver quipped, “That scene really follows a key rule of screenwriting. If you want to make a man sympathetic, but you don’t know how, just kill his wife in a tragic accident!” Then came the most shocking one-liner of all, as Oliver tied the movie trope directly to the British royal family. “Incidentally, I believe that’s the same strategy the British royal family had in 1997,” he remarked. To conclude the brutal joke, a photo of Princess Diana flashed across the screen.
The audience's response to the joke was predictably mixed. A few sat in stunned silence, some groaned with long "Ooooohs," and others chuckled at the sheer audacity of the punchline. Wisely choosing not to linger, Oliver quickly moved on with the rest of the show. Of course, this wasn’t the first time a show has used the complex relationship between King Charles and the late Princess of Wales for a quip. In fact, Saturday Night Live UK recently did a skit about the King and a Diana-inspired AI robot, which left the audience laughing uncontrollably!
