There was just one topic that was off limits when Donald Trump was roasted by a panel of celebrities back in 2011.
Stars including Larry King, Lisa Lampanelli, Marlee Matlin (interpreted by Jack Jason), Snoop Dogg and Jeff Ross took turns hurling abuse at Donald Trump for a Comedy Central roast.
But as Aaron Lee (who has written jokes for every Comedy Central roast special since 2005) revealed, “Each year, the ‘roastee’ has certain topics they declare off limits.”
So what did Trump refuse to laugh about?
“The only thing we got from Trump was the request not to say he exaggerates his wealth,” Lee wrote on li.st.
It’s a claim backed up by comedian Ross, who not only roasted Trump during the TV special but has also been hired by the former “Apprentice” host to perform at private functions.
“You can make fun of his hair, his appearance, the fact that he could be our first orange American president, none of that bothers him,” Ross said to Jimmy Kimmel in July.
“You could even make jokes about his family, he doesn’t care. What hurts him is if you make fun of the fact that he has gone bankrupt in the past. That’s the one thing that he’s super sensitive about.”
Trump’s so sensitive about it, in fact, that he edited some of the jokes written for him to use at the roast to make himself sound even wealthier.
According to the Huffington Post, Trump requested a joke about how he lives in a “25,000-square-foot penthouse atop my solid-gold space station” be changed to a “50,000-square-foot penthouse.”
Ross also recalled: “I remember the writers were sending him his jokes and one of them said, ‘What’s the difference between a wet squirrel and Donald Trump?’ And the punchline was, ‘A wet squirrel doesn’t have $2 billion.’”
“He wrote back and said, ‘make it $10 billion.’ And the writers wrote back and said, ‘how about $4 billion?’ It became a business negotiation and they settled on $7 billion.”
It’s not as if the celebrity roasters didn’t have plenty of other things to mock Trump over, though.
For proof, here are our five favorite lines from the Comedy Central roast of Donald Trump:
“Donald, you’re also responsible for that awful show ‘The Apprentice.’ The worst part of that show is having to look at your face. Your face is so big and bloated with such a bad hairpiece, I’m surprised it’s not married to Kelly Preston pretending not to be gay.” — Whitney Cummings
“The Donald and I have a lot in common: We both live in New York, we both play golf, we both fantasize about his daughter.” — Jeff Ross
“Tonight we honor a self-made millionaire. He started with nothing, worked hard, and made a fortune. … That man is Fred Trump, Donald’s dad. That’s right, for all his self-starter bulls–t, he’s basically Jaden Smith with a comb-over.” — Seth MacFarlane
“Donald, I’m not even sure if you’re aware of this, but the only difference between you and Michael Douglas from the movie ‘Wall Street’ is that no one’s going to be sad when you get cancer.” — Anthony Jeselnik
“Donald says he wants to run for president and move on into the White House. Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time you pushed a black family out of their home.” — Snoop Dogg
The best bits from the Donald Trump roast
Warning: Graphic language