NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: HBO’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ host John Oliver apparently killed two birds with one stone as he joked about OJ Simpson while taking a dig at New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.
The 46-year-old comedian was talking about the bribery allegations against Menedez and his wife Nadine Arslanian in Sunday's episode when he played a clip of the senator’s proposal in front of the Taj Mahal.
Menedez and Arslanian have been charged with bribery over their alleged acceptance of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in return for the use of the senator's influence to enrich three New Jersey businessmen and benefit the Egyptian government.
A newly unsealed, 39-page indictment alleges that in exchange for the office powers, the couple allegedly received “cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other items of value.”
Federal agents said they discovered many of the items when they executed search warrants in the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in June 2022.
Following a lengthy investigation, Menedez and Arslanian were eventually charged with counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. However, they have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Why John Oliver took dig at OJ Simpson?
The clip played by Oliver reportedly captured Menedez trying to enchant Arslanian with a musical number from 'The Greatest Showman'.
Menendez sang “Never Enough” which has lyrics like “towers of gold will never be enough,” which made Oliver relate it to Simpson, who was found guilty in a botched robbery and sentenced to up to 33 years in prison in 2008.
In 1995, the former NFL player, who also starred in several Hollywood movies, was acquitted of the charges of killing his estranged spouse, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.
“It doesn’t look great now to hear the world’s oldest theater kid sing about how ‘towers of gold will never be enough’ for him, given the multiple gold bars that were found in his actual house,” Oliver said of Menedez’s bribery allegations.
“I don’t care how much you like a song if it sounds like a confession, maybe don’t sing it in public,” he continued, according to Deadline.
Reflecting on Simpson’s trials, the comedian then quipped, “It’s one of the many reasons the Sweeney Todd revival on Broadway stars Josh Groban and not OJ Simpson because regardless of how good Juice would be in the role, the knife crimes happening on stage wouldn’t be the knife crimes that I’d be thinking about.”
John Oliver shreds OJ Simpson for commenting on Alex Murdaugh
Oliver’s new dig came just a few months after he shredded Simpson for chiming in on the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted for the 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul.
“Of all the ill-advised pieces of commentary concerning this blockbuster trial, perhaps no one was less welcome than this,” Oliver said in a March episode before airing a clip from Simpson’s video.
In his clip, Simpson claimed, “A whole lot of people asking me what I think about this Alex Murdaugh trial. I don’t know why they think I’m an expert.”
“Oh, I do. I do, OJ. Because there are exactly two things that you have expertise on in this life: football and murdering wives. No one’s asking you for your take on Alex Murdaugh’s rushing average, so I’m guessing it’s the second one there,” Oliver quipped.
