Nikki Glaser Calls Out ‘Self-Centered’ Ben Affleck for Bombing at Tom Brady Roast
You thought Nikki Glaser’s burns of Tom Brady — and Gisele and Gisele’s boyfriend and Drew Bledsoe and Gronk and Brady’s kids and Bridget Moynahan — were nasty? You should have heard the firebombs Glaser threw at fellow roaster Ben Affleck on Barstool Sports KFC Radio podcast this weekend.
Brady’s roast inspired a lot of “harshest jokes” and “funniest insults” articles, but it’s unlikely you saw Affleck’s name on any of those lists. Instead, Affleck performed an anti-roast, but unlike when Norm Macdonald or Andy Samberg pulled off that tricky feat, the Argo star didn’t appear to be doing it on purpose. Instead of roasting Brady, Affleck used his time on the dais to go after online trolls. Jokes were replaced with a vein-throbbing tirade against “you guys out there talking shit behind your fucking keyboards. That doesn’t make you a fan!”
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If that “roast” seemed like a thinly veiled attack on Affleck’s own online critics, it was because that was exactly what was happening.
Glaser called bullshit. “I haven’t watched (Affleck’s set) again because I don’t like to watch people bomb,” she said. “He didn’t prepare. He’s someone who’s famous enough that he thinks that this is probably beneath him to do this, so it’s ‘I’m just gonna do a favor. It’s not going to be that big of a deal.’”
Why was Affleck “phoning it in”? Glaser’s hypothesis is a barely hidden agenda. She imagined Affleck pitching a concept to the roast’s writers: “Maybe I do an angle where I’m mad about … tweets.” That’s because, she guesses, Affleck is mad about tweets.
“That was so self-centered,” agreed podcast host Kevin Clancy.
“There were so many jokes that didn’t get used,” says Glaser, referring to a pile of the show’s rejected gags that would have been funnier than the garbage Affleck trotted out. The material “could have filled up an entire set of his,” she says. “That would have been amazing. But either (the writers) couldn’t get him on the phone enough to work out something, he didn’t practice or he just picked a bad premise and he had to stick to it.”
Glaser isn’t the only person to call out Affleck for the performance. Former ESPN personalities Katie Nolan and Dan Le Batard wondered if Affleck was sober. Fellow Bostonian Dane Cook thought Affleck should have bailed on the teleprompter and that he “came in last place.” Meanwhile, per usual, X users came in off the top rope with the meanest burns of all.