When the comedian Katt Williams arrives to something called Club Shay Shay — the Shannon Sharpe-and-I guess-Draft Kings podcast — he’s there to correct the record. A revolving door of sentient grilling sandals have guested on the show previously (the black comedians Rickey Smiley, Cedric The Entertainer, and Steve Harvey), and they’ve told an array of not-truths. “The reason I had to come is because you’ve made a safe place for the truth to be told,” Williams tells Sharpe in the interview, posted January 3. “And I have watched all of these lowbrow comedians come here and disrespect you in your face and tell you straight-up lies.”
Williams is a stand-up comedian; the other men are “hosts” and “content creators” and “male faces you can run sports betting ads next to.” He promptly tells them about themselves. “[Steve Harvey said] ‘I didn’t want to be a movie star.’ No, [he] couldn’t be a movie star! There are 30,000 new scripts in Hollywood every year. Not one of them asked for a country bumpkin black dude that can’t talk good and look like Mr. Potato Head.” I cannot stress enough that this is ten minutes into the three hour long conversation. Ten minutes in!
Of Kevin Hart: “In 15 years in Hollywood, no one in Hollywood has a memory of a sold-out Kevin Hart show, there being a line for him, ever getting a standing ovation at any comedy club,” Williams says. “He already had his deals when he got here. Have we heard of a comedian that came to L.A., and in his first year in L.A., he had his own sitcom on network television and had his own film called Soul Plane that he was leading? No. We’ve never heard of that before that person or since that person. What do you think a plant is?” Of Cedric the Entertainer: “Remember, when Cedric the Entertainer starts, he’s supposed to be singing, dancing, and telling jokes. That’s why he’s called ‘the Entertainer.’ We found out he can’t sing, can’t dance, and doesn’t write jokes. He did four comedy specials. They’re so bad, Shannon, they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi. Can I say that again for the audience? They’re so bad that they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi.”
https://twitter.com/hunteryharris/status/1742676062381973565
Sharpe is an ineffectual interviewer and is mostly along for the ride for the three-hour session. The basics — like Williams’ ideas about joke-telling or his biography — feel cursory, just like the tedious questions about another Friday. No matter: this is a man on a mission, who mostly seems annoyed that he’s been badmouthed by comedians he feels are beneath him. “Why do you think I speak with such clarity?” he says. “I was actually involved in each one of these stories I’m telling you about.” (In passing, Williams has some foul quips about Kim Kardashian and the Jonathan Majors trial, and in passing says that he’s close to Farrakhan. Sharpe doesn’t push back. The most he offers is to double-check dates and to say that women need to be treated “with kid gloves.” The thoughtful, critical back and forth of an “In Conversation” this is not.)
But the interview is, indisputably, very funny. Williams speaks with the candor that can only come from being funnier than any opponent. (The Steve Harvey stuff alone is god-tier: “They just tell the stories, like, ‘Thanks to my wife I’m where I am.’ You said that about the first wife! You forget that? You told us it was her. Then you went and married somebody else that ‘think like a man.’ What are you talking about? They think they can rewrite history.”)
The men Williams discussed have launched the stupidest defenses: mostly reminders that he’s probably right. Ludacris released a diss track that more than anything proves acting is the better route for him. (He’s acting like it’s good.) Kevin Hart is a professional comedian and this is the best he can do:
I mean just embarrassing.
I feel about Shannon Sharpe (football player turned sports commenter-slash-podcaster) the way that one Tyrell Hampton Katy Perry tweet: “Teenage Dream isn’t a Katy Perry song, she was a vessel for God in that recording studio. Why he chose her I don’t know but it’s not my place to question it.” The three-hour Katt Williams interview on Club Shay Shay isn’t a straight man’s podcast interview, it is a vessel for God in that Men’s Warehouse-Zero Bond lounge. I don’t know why God chose Shannon Sharpe but it’s not my place to question it.
Katt Williams has a bob. You have to be deadly serious to cross someone with a bob. Engage at your own risk — you will not recover. You know how the most ignorant person you know always says if you see her in a fight with a bear, help the bear? If you fight with a bob get your affairs in order. People who wake up early to bump those ends will stand on business every time.
What the paid list got this week
You can read it here, and upgrade your subscription here:
On Sunday night I’m going to start a chat in the Substack app for anyone who wants to watch/react to the Golden Globes with me!
Jeremy Allen White’s Kyle XY Belly Button
I know that I said, on the subject of Jeremy Allen White, “I understand that I’ll never understand, but I’ll stand.”
But now I’m starting to understand …
ET got an exclusive interview with Leonardo DiCaprio at the Palm Springs Film Festival, and he said one of the funniest things I’ve ever read him say. "Do I get used to it? It's not a part of my everyday life, but I was actually incredibly surprised at the turnout here," DiCaprio told ET while signing autographs. "Palm Springs Film Festival's kind of going off. It really is."
Palm Springs Film Festival’s kind of going off.
Although devoted Hung Up readers will recall that I find Deuxmoi generally worthless, has had at least two documented good posts. One of them is the story of Leonardo DiCaprio talking about describing a nightclub as “off the Richter.”
“Palm Springs Film Festival’s kind of going off” is sooo talking-to-24-year-olds core. This is a vaper. This is a Euphoria watcher.
Dropping Links
Christopher Nolan says a Peloton instructor complained about Tenet — let her speak! (People)
The Safdie brothers broke up. (Variety)
People who binged Criterion’s Parker Posey collection won: She’ll be on the White Lotus season three. (Boston Girlfriend™️ Michelle Monaghan will be there too.) (Variety)
It’s dismaying that Vili Fualaau wasn’t even approached about May December, an ouroboros inside a movie of ouroboros. makes the movie’s point. But the timing of this news as a certain Oppenheimer supporting actor is getting overshadowed by two better performances (Melton, and Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things, and honestly even Albert Einstein coming out from behind that car in Oppenheimer)… Robert Downey Jr.’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar campaign you are not slick. (THR)
Need to re-up this: “My statement on the situation at Harvard: I simply do not care very much about Harvard” (Read Max)
I’ll leave you with this:
(And the answer is that no man is worth James Corden not.)
Have a good weekend! I’ll start a chat in the substack app about the Golden Globes Sunday night.
Hunter Harris you do a SERVICE for the American people.
I am a huge Katt fan and I am fascinated by his comedic talent as much as his actual human strangeness. That way too long podcast did not disappoint.