IRVINE, Calif. — Comedian Adam Carolla, who doesn’t openly identify as a conservative but certainly holds many conservative views, says it ain’t easy being right-of-center in liberal Hollywood.
“If you’re conservative in Hollywood, you’re on a list of people who need to be put in their place,” he told The Daily Caller on Thursday in the green room of the Irvine Improv before he recorded his popular podcast before a live audience.
“If you’re Woody Allen, you do what you want. If you’re Spike Lee, you can go ahead and tweet out the address of the guy who the New Black Panthers put a bounty on and there’s no repercussions, because Hollywood will decide who’s guilty and who’s not guilty. Now, if Tom Selleck tweeted out the address of a black guy who the new Klan had put a bounty on, there’d be repercussions against Tom Selleck. That much I can promise you.”
Carolla was in the midst of a publicity tour for his new book “Not Taco Bell Material.” While promoting the book in an interview with the New York Post, he created a firestorm by telling the newspaper that, on average, “dudes are funnier than chicks.” He later fired back at his critics, telling TheDC that anyone who thinks he’s a misogynist is “fucking insane.”
But Carolla, who grew up in a family on food stamps, saved most of his scorn for what he perceives as Hollyood’s liberal pretenders.
“They all pretend like they’re part of the 99 percent, but they’re not; they’re part of the 1 percent,” he said of Hollywood’s liberal elites. “They’re all incorporated, they all have tax attorneys, believe me.”
“Whoever is for higher taxes, feel free to pay higher taxes,” he continued. “And while you’re at it, don’t shoot your next project in Mississippi or New Mexico or Canada. Stay right here. Stay right in Los Angeles and pay your higher taxes and let the money go right where it belongs.”
He pointed to liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore as the classic example of a Hollywood phony.
“Michael Moore makes $30 million a year, $40 million a year, but he’s part of the 99 percenters? Now he has to keep up that façade,” Carolla said.
“So he has to show up wearing the ball cap and the t-shirt, because if he ever shows up with a top hat and a monocle, he’s going to be tossed out of his club. … They all do the same thing.”
Carolla says he likes liberal political comedians like Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, who use their television shows as platforms to spout their politics. But a conservative political comedian, he cautioned, would never be afforded the same opportunity.
“I think it’s possible for that [conservative] comedian to be popular because I think the country probably is more in line with the way he thinks than the way that Bill Maher thinks, but I don’t think the executives are going to give that guy a shot at that show,” Carolla said
“You know, it’s a small little clan of sort of, you know, progressive hipsters who never stop stroking each other.”
“America would like it,” he continued. “It’s like, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour shows up on Comedy Central, gets their highest ratings by far. I know Comedy Central hates it. That’s the country speaking, you know. I’m not a fan of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, I’m just saying.”
Carolla says Hollywood exists in a bubble that leans left.
“[W]e live in a little sort of liberal progressive cocoon where we think the world and the rest of the country thinks like we do. [But] I don’t think they do.” he said.
“I think they tend to think more like Bill O’Reilly than they do Keith Olbermann, and thus there is this disparity in ratings. … Glenn Beck made $80 million last year — and Keith Olbermann’s looking for a job. Like — okay, so I’d say America’s spoken. But Glenn Beck’s not coming to Hollywood and getting a job.”
Carolla, who appeared in the most recent edition of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” is unabashed in his admiration of the flamboyant businessman and consistent lightning rod Donald Trump.
“I like Trump,” he said.
“He is who he is. He’s, you know, he’s Trump times two. He’s a caricature, he’s a caricature of himself. But I like a business guy, I like a hardworking guy, he’s a motivated guy. You say whatever you want about the guy. I’ll tell you this: He’s got three kids, they’re all talking to him, they all love him, and they’re all super hard working people. And you show me a dad whose son’s not speaking to him, I’ll show you a bad person. And you show me a guy whose adult kids adore him and work for him — you can’t be that bad.”
Carolla was a boxing instructor during his younger years, and he remains a fan of the sweet science. So TheDC asked for his thoughts about the recent controversial decision awarding Timothy Bradley an upset victory over Manny Pacquiao. Unlike much of the boxing world, Carolla was blasé about the whole imbroglio.
“I don’t think anyone was on the take,” he said.
“It’s not a science, and so you’re going to get a bad call every X amount of fights. I mean, that’s the way it works. Usually they get it right. But you only remember when they get it wrong. And this time they got it wrong.”