Comedian John Mulaney hosted Saturday Night Live twice this year – once in February, and then again on Halloween.
The first time around, Mulaney told a joke during his monologue about 2020 being a leap year, something started by Julius Caesar to correct the calendar.
Mulaney joked that another thing that happened with Caesar was he was “stabbed to death by a bunch of senators because he went crazy”, something which the comedian said was “an interesting thing that could happen”.
Now, appearing remotely on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the comedian has revealed he was investigated by the Secret Service over the joke’s apparent allusion to Donald Trump – who, Mulaney stresses, the joke was not even about.
“There’s a service that operates for the president, and they’re secret. They’re a secret service,” Mulaney told Kimmel.
“They investigated me, I guess they opened a file on me because of the joke. I have to say: am I stoked there’s a file on me? Absolutely. Did I enjoy it in the moment? Not so much.”
Mulaney also talked about backlash to a joke he told while hosting the show in late October, when he called the election an “elderly man contest”, and suggested inequalities will remain regardless of who is President.
Speaking to Kimmel, Mulaney admitted that he fully deserved the backlash. “I should have said, ‘I very much want one to win over the other and there will be improvements if one wins,'” the comedian clarified.
Watch the interview in full below.
