Sean Spicer Explains the Reason for Emmys Cameo: "I Said I'd Be There"

The Sean Spicer walk-on during Stephen Colbert’s monologue at the Emmys was the brainchild of Colbert and his writing team to which Spicer casually agreed, according to Spicer’s own account. Spicer rolled in on a podium, Melissa McCarthy-style, and mimicked his post-inauguration claims with a declaration that, “this will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys. Period. Both in person and around the world.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Spicer said that Colbert and his executive producer reached out to Spicer with the idea. “They came up with a concept, and I thought it was kinda funny,” Spicer told THR. “I said I’d be there.”

So, not only did Sean Spicer end up meeting the Pope after all, he might have met Laura Dern at Sunday night’s Emmy Awards, which is totally unfair.

Although the amount of time Sean Spicer spent onstage at the Emmys was brief, the criticism that his appearance incurred will likely endure for much longer. Much of the backlash against Sean Spicer’s Emmy Awards cameo matches Spicer’s own grudge against Dippin Dots ice cream in vitriol.

Commentators pointed to Spicer’s appearance as an indicator that anyone associated with Donald Trump’s administration can be rehabilitated, whether or not they deserve it.

Many celebrities, some Emmys attendees, took to Twitter to speak out against Spicer’s inclusion as an undeserved chance for the former Press Secretary, who repeatedly and unapologetically lied to the American people, to rebrand.

But Spicer wasn’t in on every joke about him at the awards show last night. Comedian Billy Eichner nailed Spicer with a single, unpunctuated descriptor of his pre-show behavior.

That is a good Sean Spicer joke- one where the man himself is the punchline.