British comedian Ricky Gervais angered the Hollywood establishment this week with an incendiary performance as host of the Golden Globes. The show’s audience squirmed at the unexpected ferocity of Gervais’ jokes, in which he mocked Cher and the Sex and the City cast as superannuated relics, referred to Bruce Willis as “Ashton Kutcher’s dad,” described Robert Downey Jr. as being best known for “his stays at the Betty Ford clinic,” and referred, without naming names, to two famous actors affiliated with Scientology who, he claimed, are closeted gays. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts the Globes, issued a statement saying Gervais “went too far.”
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