Interviewer Kicked Off Trump's Plane After What She Did to His Face, But 45 Is One Laughing Now
Most of us in the global Anglosphere have happily gone about our lives not knowing that Ruby Wax existed. Britishers aren’t quite as lucky, however; the American-born comedienne has been a fixture on the BBC since the early 1990s, hosting (or “presenting,” in Britisher-speak) a number of shows for the U.K.’s state broadcaster.
The 70-year-old, however, will best be remembered in the rest of the world for being the woman who got thrown off of Donald Trump’s plane for laughing at him when he said he wanted to be president back in the 1990s.
Wax told the story — again — on Kate Garraway’s ITV chat show Wednesday. (For the curious, just be assured Garraway is another random British media flibbertigibbet you’re better off not knowing about.)
During the interview, Wax said that during meals with the people she’d interview for her show, they would reveal “really personal things” that she wouldn’t bring up during the interview proper.
It didn’t quite work out that way during the meal with Trump, however.
“Donald — you know, when a man treats you like an idiot, you kind of become an idiot,” Wax said. “Because he knows females, because he just has sex with them. But he couldn’t figure me out. He really was so fierce and so vicious. He said, ‘You’re angry with a smile.’ So he got me, because I was backed into a corner.”
“He did say, ‘I want to be the next president of the United States,’ and I thought it was a joke,” she continued. “I thought, ‘What a sense of humor this guy has.’ So I started laughing.’ And he said, ‘That’s it, I want her off the flight.’
“So we only got to 33,000 feet and we went straight back down again. It’s not a good show.”
This isn’t the first time Wax has recounted the story, either. In 2017, she told Garraway and Charlotte Hawkins on “Good Morning Britain” that Trump “wouldn’t speak” after she laughed in his face about his presidential aspirations.
“So my crew and I landed and we were stuck in Arkansas with nowhere to go,” she said, according to the U.K.’s Mirror. “We ended up finding him in Nebraska judging a Miss Nebraska contest.”
While Trump didn’t become the next president of the United States — he did consider a Reform Party run in 2000, back when Ross Perot’s baby was taken seriously by American voters — he did eventually get elected president in 2016, as those of you not just waking up from an eight-year-long coma will no doubt recognize.
Of course, that didn’t stop comedians from laughing in Trump’s face when he declared then, either.
Remember Jon Stewart’s schtick when Trump announced? “There’s a crazy person running for president,” said the then-“Daily Show” host, who was wrapping up his final six weeks in the gig at the time, as per The Hollywood Reporter. “Apparently, Huckabee-Santorum wasn’t farfetched enough.”
Stewart would go on to call Trump “America’s id” and closed with this: “Thank you, Donald Trump, for making my last six weeks my best six weeks. He is putting me in some kind of comedy hospice.”
Aaaand here is a somber-looking Jon Stewart — no longer so sanguine and ruminating about the fact Trump won with now-canceled alleged serial sexual harasser Charlie Rose — after Trump got elected:
What a difference an election makes, huh?
And it wasn’t just Stewart who thought the whole idea was a laugh and a half, as The Associated Press reported in a June 18, 2015, round-up titled “Trump announcement boon to late-night comics.”
Remember Larry Wilmore? If you do, you’re probably related to Larry Wilmore. However, the host of the show that then followed “The Daily Show” had this to say: “I’ve got a show and Trump’s running for president … Good news for me, horrible news for our writers. Because all of the jokes are officially writing themselves.”
Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” said Trump would be a “Mad Libs” president and that he would have had him on “but the last time we checked he was still giving his speech.”
The eponymous host of “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” meanwhile, said that “in a speech cobbled together from forwarded emails from your uncle, [Trump] let us know what he thought that America needed.”
Conan O’Brien, then on TBS, said Trump’s announcement “traditionally means six more weeks of comedy.”
“Here’s the sad news,” O’Brien said. “Season 15 of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ will not air. But not to worry. With Trump running for president, you’ll still get to see an irrelevant B-list celebrity not get a job.”
He who laughs last laughs the hardest, however — and Trump ended up having the job he was seeking for longer than many of the people laughing in his face had theirs.
That’s something to remember for comedians still prone to laughing at the 45th president’s chances of becoming the 47th president, as well.
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