Saturday Night Live, especially recently, has been a very good way for male comedians to date very famous women. Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson, Dave McCary and Emma Stone, Pete Davidson and everyone. And it’s not just SNL, according to British comedian London Hughes, whose debut Netflix special, To Catch a Dick, premiered in December. Worldwide, male comedians are able to date famous actresses and models, but you don’t see the reverse. Hughes feels like she also should get to date an Avenger. She should at least be able to date someone like Colin Jost!
On Vulture’s Good One podcast, Hughes discusses this very unfair double standard, her dream to be “the British Whoopi Goldberg,†meeting Larry David, and more. You can read some excerpts from the transcript or listen to the full episode below. Tune in to Good One every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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On Colin Jost (and His Hot Wife)
My dream is to be on SNL. I love SNL. We don’t get it in the U.K., so I’m always watching clips of it on YouTube. By the time I got to L.A. and I was coming here for the pilot season and staying here for months on end, I made sure that I’d be watching SNL because I just didn’t get to watch a full episode before. I barely watched “Weekend Update†because it wasn’t a sketch that — you know, it’s not like a moving sketch. It’s just a segment, and I don’t know what happens in America because I’m in Britain, so I never watched it.
I remember one day, I was watching SNL from beginning to end, and I saw this dude pop up on the screen, and I was like, I would fuck him! Oh my God! Like, he’s the perfect — not really attractive, but kind of — but he comes across as so smart and so funny that it makes him hotter, and I feel like the same about me. I’m not the hottest, do you know what I mean? I’m no sunset, but I come across as so funny and charming that it makes you want to fuck me. So I saw Colin Jost, and I was like, I want to fuck him.Â
Then I was telling my friend about it. I was like, “There’s this guy that’s on SNL. He’s just like … I don’t know what is about him. It’s not like he’s very attractive, but I just want to fuck him. I want to get to know him.†She was just like, “He goes out with Scarlett Johansson.†I said, “No, no, no, Scarlett? No, no, nah, nah.†It literally was just like, Yeah. I am not hot enough to date a normal comic because normal comics can date movie-star models. Do you know how unfair that is? It’s not like Amy Schumer is dating Ben Affleck, you know what I mean? It’s so not fair. So, for me, that was just the biggest proof that what I said was right — that he’s with her. So then I was just like, There’s no hope for me.Â
There’s nothing wrong with Colin and Scarlett. I just wish I could get a Michael B. Jordan, but I can’t. I cannot get someone as hot as Scarlett. The male equivalent of Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t want to date me, and that’s the problem with society, okay? That’s what needs to change. I’m making a stand, because Pete Davidson shouldn’t have got that many hot girls. He shouldn’t have! I’d fuck him myself, but that’s not the point. The point is the caliber of women he got is great, and we should reverse that. Women should get that caliber of men too! All women, whatever they want. So, yeah, that’s a manifesto.
On Being a Black Woman in Comedy in Britain
I just want to be — and it hasn’t been done since baby girl Whoopi — but I want to be like British Whoopi Goldberg. Like when you think of comedy legends that are Black and female and British, you think of me, because right now when you think of comedy British legends, they’re all white guys. If you even Google “British comedians,†it’s all white guys. Maybe there are a couple white females, but it’s mainly white guys.
But, really and truly, there are so many beautiful, talented comedians of color that get overlooked or not seen as actual “British comedy.†To the world, British comedy is being a Monty Python, and it’s so much more than that. I just want to change that. I want to be included in the conversation when you talk about your greats. Just like when in America, when you talk about your greats, you talk about Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Chappelle — these are Black people. We don’t have that in Britain. We don’t have a pool of Black, successful millionaire legendary comedians in Britain. We don’t, and I want to be one of those.
If I can then open the door for more comedians of color, especially female comedians from Britain, to come through and do well on a global scale, then wicked, because that’s the plan. Then I probably won’t have any kids because I’ll be too busy, so I’ll just make comedy my child and just start creating amazing comedy content for years to come so that when I die, I die as one of the greatest.
On Meeting Larry David
So, basically, the Colin Jost joke was there, and I was like, “What’s that like?†because like Scarlett Johansson is an absolute dynamite, knockout, beautiful woman, and she’s marrying a lovely, good-looking, funny guy. But I was like, What’s my equivalent? I just thought, Who could I probably not fuck if I tried? So then I literally went on Google and just saw Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, who’s fucking stunning; all these old comedy dudes have hot wives. I didn’t know if Larry David was in a relationship or whatever or had a wife, so I just thought, He’s fair game because I can’t see his wife, but I’m sure she’s hot.
So I wrote the joke, and it’s so funny because I wrote it in 2019, and I forgot about it, and I was like, “I’m not hot enough to date Larry David.†Then last year, I met a girl, and she’s really, really sweet. We hit it off instantly, we start following each other on Instagram, and I tell her about To Catch a Dick. Then I was following her on Instagram one day, and I just see a picture of her, in a wedding dress, marrying Larry David. I was just thinking, Huh? It was just the most surreal thing. I was like, What the fuck? I remember writing like, “Congratulations!†and thinking, What did I … What?!
But then she was going to come and watch the preview of To Catch a Dick, and at this point, we’ve sold the Netflix special, and the joke’s in there. So I’m not changing the joke, but I need to tell … This is Larry David’s wife! So we’re chatting on the phone, and I was like, “Congratulations on the wedding. I have something to tell you. You’re going to come and watch my show, To Catch a Dick. I have a joke about your husband.†And she was like, “Really?†I was like, “Yeah, and I wrote it before I met you. Can I tell you it?†She was like, “Yeah, what is it?†So I told her, and she started laughing and was like, “He’ll be fine.â€
Then she went to watch it and she’s like, “I’ll bring Larry,†and I was like “Do not bring Larry David to my preview. Please do not. Please do not.†And she was like, “Okay, I won’t bring him, but you have to meet him for dinner.†So I had dinner at their place, and I met Larry, and he was like, “So, I hear you’ve got a joke about me? And I was like, “Yes, Mr. Larry David. I do.†And he was like, “What is it?†And I was like, Fuck, I’m doing this joke in front of him. So I did the joke, and he laughed and went bright red and said, “You have my permission to use it.†So that joke is Larry David–approved. So, yeah. He and his wife are lovely.
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