Television producer Chuck Lorre delivered a profanity-filled speech targeting President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump while accepting an honor at the Project Angel Food Angel Awards in Los Angeles last Saturday, prompting a sharp rebuke from the White House.
Lorre, creator of “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Mom,” called Trump a “Russian asset” during his remarks and joked about checking the news each morning to see “if the President of the United States had a heart attack while straining to take a dump.” He also described Melania Trump as “a surgically enhanced, cold-hearted Yugoslavian escort who clearly hates her husband.”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded in a statement to Fox News Digital: “Chuck Lorre should immediately seek psychiatric help to treat his severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has completely rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Lorre was being honored at the event after his foundation made what Project Angel Food called a “transformational” donation to the charity, which provides medically tailored meals to people with critical and life-threatening illnesses. During his acceptance speech, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Lorre repeatedly pivoted to politics, telling the audience his “need to cause laughter” compelled him to do so.
He also contrasted Melania Trump unfavorably with former first lady Michelle Obama, asking the crowd to “question how a country can embrace a smart, educated, warm, funny first lady like Michelle Obama” while tolerating the current first lady. He closed with his own version of the Serenity Prayer, saying he sought “the courage to say Donald Trump is a Russian asset who traded teenagers with Jeffrey Epstein, and the wisdom to end on a cheap laugh.”
Lorre did not confine his criticism to Republicans. He also urged the Democratic National Committee to “run from the suicidal insanity of the far-left woke culture in the coming election” and took aim at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his vaccine views.
A Double Standard, Critics Say
Christian Toto, founder and editor of Hollywood in Toto, told Fox News Digital that attacking a sitting first lady breaks an informal code even comedians tend to honor.
“Generally speaking, we don’t attack first ladies. It’s just sort of an unspoken rule. They weren’t elected. They’re just supporting their husbands, so by and large, even comedians won’t go there. But when it comes to First Lady Melania Trump, they go there, they go there a lot,” Toto said.
Toto called the escort comparison “obviously factually incorrect” and “cruel,” adding that it sat uneasily alongside Hollywood’s professed commitment to treating women better in the #MeToo era. He argued the industry would react very differently if a conservative figure targeted a Democratic first lady in similar terms.
“There are double standards that exist in Hollywood. Targets you can hit; targets you can’t hit. If Michelle Obama was the target of such a cruel attack, I think it would get a lot of attention. There might even be a call for him to apologize for his comments,” he said.
Toto also questioned the growing habit of celebrities injecting partisan politics into charity events. “When you think about speaking at an event, it’s almost like you’re on a first date—you don’t bring up abortion, you don’t bring up gun control, you don’t bring up all these sort of hot-button issues,” he said, adding that celebrities face little pushback for doing so because “no one’s going to critique them, no one is going to fact-check them.”
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Lorre but did not receive a response.
Add comment