Comedian and writer Amber Ruffin suggested Tuesday she was actually glad about being dropped as the headliner for this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — particularly after revisiting what she’d planned to say.
Ruffin appeared on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” to discuss her last-minute cancellation from the annual event, which took place this past weekend.
She had originally been announced as the featured performer in February.
“You ain’t never going to believe this,” Ruffin said when Colbert asked why she was removed from the gig. “So, I had said that it would be impossible to make jokes about both sides. Because we’re at a point now where one side is snatching people up off the street and putting them on a plane — and the other side is not doing that. So, I just thought it would be impossible to make jokes about both sides.”
Ruffin, a longtime “Late Night With Seth Meyers” writer, had been booked on “Colbert” to discuss the WHCA set prior to being dropped.
When asked if she was disappointed or relieved to be nixed from the dinner, she said she was “really, really sad” for about two hours — then reconsidered.
“I thought, if they didn’t want me doing that show before I had even opened my mouth, then they would have been really, really sad with what they got,” she said. “And then also, after they fired me, I looked back at my Google Doc and was like, ‘This would have been bad.’ They would not have liked it.”
When Colbert asked if she wanted to share any of the jokes she’d written, Ruffin shut it down with a laugh and said: “Absolutely not.”
“Why? Are your immigration papers not in order?” Colbert joked.
Ruffin then revealed how she had planned to end her set.
“This administration is trying to get you to hate other people, and that’s not your natural state,” she said. “Human beings are made to love one another — blah blah blah.”
“But I mean, it’s true,” she continued. “And they got you by convincing you that you’re filled with hate, and you absolutely aren’t. It’s the opposite of what you’re made for.”
Ruffin concluded, “And saying that out loud now makes me glad that I got canceled.”
Watch the interview here: