Tucker Carlson kicked off his 16-show live tour Wednesday night in Arizona by speaking out on the power of prayer with British actor and comedian Russell Brand.

Before Brand joined him on stage, Carlson told the audience how he became emotional when Brand approached him backstage and asked him to pray with him.

“Russell Brand comes up to me and he goes, ‘Will you come back and pray with me?’” Carlson said before putting his hand on his chest and bursting into laughter. “And it made me emotional!”

“And by the way, if you had said to me five years ago, for Russell Brand to go, ‘Will you pray with me?’ Like, no. I’m married, dude. I don’t go that way,” Carlson told the crowd to their amusement. “I just wouldn’t — I don’t know. I wouldn’t have even understood that language at all. And I would have been so ashamed and self-conscious. And I never would have admitted it. If I prayed with a man backstage? I don’t think so. I’m not telling anybody about that. That’s too weird.”

“And we did, and it was beautiful. And now I’m so proud to say it. Not because I’m like, any kind of role model! I’m hardly a role model! And that’s kind of the beauty of it. I’m the opposite of a role model! I worked in cable television for 30 years! You think I’m a role model?” Carlson joked.

Carlson later sat down on stage for a discussion with Brand. The British comedian told Carlson that mental illness previously led him astray as a result of being involved in Hollywood. (RELATED: ‘Mental Illness Is Real’: Tucker Carlson Tears Into Democrats Still Wearing Masks Outside)

“If you are plucked from that obscurity and granted the opposite of the shame and ignominy that it can be to be a part of a blue-collar community, to know normal-ness and to know neglect, and suddenly to know the lure and light of attention. To suddenly feel beautiful … I felt, elevated,” Brand said.

Brand reflected on overcoming his drug addiction, which he called “the beginning of an awakening.” The British actor, who married and divorced pop star Katy Perry in a little over one year, was previously a figurehead of the left before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a noticeable shift in his political views, according to the New York Times.

“Eventually through suffering, through seeing the fame and sex that I had so eagerly worshipped, turned and metastasized against me by a machine that loathes those who speak out against it, I was forced to recognize my deep, deep foolishness,” Brand said.