Comedian Shane Gillis spared no one in his ESPY Awards opening monologue on Wednesday night, roasting everyone from Caitlin Clark to Aaron Rodgers to President Donald Trump and Mets star Juan Soto.
The jokes were likely the most biting that have come from an ESPYs host since the 1998 show led by Norm Macdonald, to whom Gillis paid homage with his final joke before starting the show.
The comedian poked fun at the current political fighting around the supposed Jeffrey Epstein client list, commenting, “There’s supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted. It probably deleted itself, right? It probably never existed.”
At one point, Gillis commented on Clark, saying, “When Caitlin Clark retires, she’s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most, fist fighting black women.”
The joke received a lukewarm reaction from the Dolby Theatre crowd.
He took aim at Aaron Rodgers’s refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine and then tied Trump and Soto together in a wild joke.
“Aaron Rodgers did not take the vaccine because he predicted that it would be bad for him and then he joined the New York Jets,” Gillis said. So maybe he wasn’t right about everything.”
“Joe Rogan actually wanted me to be here to host this award show so that I could capture Adam Silver because Joe thinks he’s an alien,” Gillis continued. “And Donald Trump wanted me to be here to capture Juan Soto for the same reason.”
