Late last week, Forbes magazine released its annual list of the 100 World’s Most Powerful Celebrities. Seven of the top ten on the list were women — including the top two, Jennifer Lopez and Oprah Winfrey.
On Sunday night’s “The Adam Carolla Show” podcast, comedian and host Adam Carolla said chastising America as a discriminatory country is bizarre when members of minority groups can attain such a high status in society.
“Let me hear the top 10 or 15 and then let’s all just close our eyes and picture what a horrible sexist, racist society we live in,” Carolla asked sidekick Alison Rosen. “So who’s first?”
“J.Lo,” Rosen responded.
“Wait a second!” Carolla exclaimed incredulously. “She’s a woman and she’s of Hispanic descent! How did we let this happen? Well, this will never happen again. [The rest] are going to be red-headed, middle-aged guys. Is Rush Limbaugh number 2?”
“Oprah,” Rosen answered.
“What? We are such a sexist, racist society! Carolla yelled.
The Forbes list continues with Justin Bieber in the third slot, the only male in the top eight, followed by Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry.
“Boy, we’ve got to do a better job with holding the ladies and the ethnics down, fellas. We’re not doing a great job,” Carolla said sarcastically.
“Let’s just kick the shit out of ourselves about how horribly oppressive we are, but go — give me the list of the most powerful people and try to explain this to any other culture,” he continued. “Go to some other culture and go ‘you know who’s held down? People of color and women, alright, let’s see a list of the highest earners. Oh, they’re all chicks? And so-called minorities? Interesting job of holding them down.”
Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg rounded out the top ten.
“There’s two men and a boy, three men. And there’s seven women, and how many ethnicities?” Carolla asked summing up. “How bad are we? Please somebody with a straight face tell me how much more work we have to do.”
Rosen noted that Donald Trump is number 14, Simon Cowell is number 18, Elton John is number 17, Rush Limbaugh is number 19 and Tyler Perry is number 20.
“All right,” Carolla concluded. “When everyone is sitting around making their fucking blowhardy speeches about the upper 1 percent and these dudes and these dudes, and these guys and this country club and their golfing and all this, picture Rihanna, please. There you go. Shut the fuck up everybody.
In 2011 Guinness World Records declared “The Adam Carolla Show” the “Most Downloaded Podcast.”