Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel roasted legendary — and outspoken — actress Meryl Streep in his opening monologue, calling her “overrated” in an obvious tongue-in-cheek tone and getting the star-studded crowd to stand and applaud for the Best Actress nominee. (See it at the 6:58-mark in the video above.)
Kimmel called Streep an actress “that has stood the test of time for her many uninspiring and overrated performances” who “has phoned it in for more than 50 films,” to the delight of the 20-time Oscar nominee and three-time winner. Streep is nominated this year for her title role in “Florence Foster Jenkins.”
Since delivering a fiery and passionate speech at the Golden Globes blasting President Donald Trump’s mockery of a disabled reporter and calling for those in the gilded crowd to support the Committee to Protect Journalists — which resulted in a huge spike in donations for the nonprofit — Streep has continued to be one of Hollywood’s most visible critics of the new administration.
Of course, Kimmel was referencing Trump’s tweeted response to Streep’s famous Globe’s speech earlier this year — when he called the three-time Oscar winner an “overrated” actress.
Earlier this month, at a speech at a Human Rights Campaign gala in New York, Streep talked about some of the blowback she received after her Golden Globes speech.
“It’s terrifying to put the target on your forehead, and it sets you up for all sorts of attacks and armies of brownshirts and bots and worse, and the only way you can do it is to feel you have to,” she said. “You have to. You don’t have an option. You have to.”
Streep didn’t specify what she was referring to with “brownshirts,” but the term historically refers to members of an early Nazi paramilitary force that intimidated targeted minorities.