Lawyers tried to stop Ricky Gervais' controversial Judi Dench ‘m*nge' joke at Golden Globes
Ricky Gervais has revealed that a team of lawyers tried to stop him from making a rude joke about Judi Dench at the Golden Globes in 2020.
The comedian, 64, has been making us laugh for years now, with some of his best punchlines coming in a celebrity-filled room at the annual film and TV awards ceremony.
The actor has hosted the Golden Globes a total of five times over the years, in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2020.
And with the 2020 gig being his last one, it's understandable that Gervais was determined to go out with a bang, which came in the form of a few funny but controversial bleeped jokes.
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Now, if you need a reminder of the controversial moment, one of his most talked-about gags during the event was about Judi Dench's role in the 2019 movie Cats, in which she (of course) played a cat.
After joking about James Corden playing a 'fat p*ssy,' Gervais turned his attention to 91-year-old Dench and said: "Dame Judi Dench said it was the role she was born to play cause she loves nothing better than plonking herself down on the carpet, lifting her back leg and licking her own m*nge."
The word 'm*nge' was understandably bleeped out during the live US broadcast.
And now, in his new Netflix special Mortality, which was released on Tuesday (30 December), the comedian recalled the prior meeting he had with Golden Globes lawyers, who hilariously begged him not to say the word.
Speaking to a crowd at the London Palladium earlier this year, Gervais explained that he was asked to see the lawyers the day before the show and was driven to the Beverley Hills Centre.
He was met with a room of 'ten lawyers in suits', whom he had to recite his entire eight-minute-long monologue to, to see if they had any issues with it.
Gervais recalled: "The head lawyer, he was about sixty years old with grey hair, he went 'Oh yes, there was one thing'. Now, I did this joke, I don't know if you remember. Uh, it went, 'The world got to see James Corden as a fat p*ssy. He was also in the movie Cats but no-one saw that'."
He said the lawyer asked: "When you say James Corden is a fat p*ssy, that's just referring to his role in Cats right?," to which the comedian clarified, yep, it was.
Thinking he'd gotten away with the m*nge joke, he left the room but was promptly called back.
Gervais explained: "As I was leaving I saw another lawyer lean in and show this head lawyer his iPhone and the head lawyer went 'Oh, yeah. Sorry Ricky can you come back a minute?'
"They'd looked up the word m*nge. I thought I'd gotten away with it, it's now like I'm getting told off. The head lawyer said, 'It says here that the word m*nge is a derogatory term for female genitalia'."
The comic attempted to explain that it's a 'slang word for a vagina in England', asking: "You don't even use it here do you?"
The lawyers allegedly argued back with: "No we don't but we go out around the world and with due diligence, now we know it's derogatory, we'll have to bleep that word live."
However, Gervais was determined to use the word and pointed out that people at home won't know what he said if it gets bleeped.
"After about ten minutes I wore them down. Eventually the head lawyer said 'Okay, you can say m*nge'," he recalled.
Adding: "They promised not to bleep it. I knew they would and they f***ing did, so when I said m*nge, I pointed."
Well, despite the bleep, we're pretty sure everyone knew what he meant.
Topics: Golden Globes, Netflix, Celebrity, Entertainment, TV And Film
Madison Burgess