Amber Ruffin on Getting Canceled by White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “This Would Have Been Bad”

Comedian Amber Ruffin says she’s “glad” she got canceled from hosting the White House Correspondents Association Dinner annual gala on April 26.

“I had said that it would be impossible to make jokes about both sides,” Ruffin told The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night. “We are at a point now where one side is snatching people up off the street and putting them on a plane, and the other side is, you know, not doing that. So I just thought it would be impossible to make jokes about both sides.”

Ruffin added she was “really, really sad” for around two hours after hearing she had been disinvited from performing at this year’s gala. But after looking at her joke material planned for her hosting gig, Ruffin concluded “before I had even opened my mouth, they would have been really, really sad with what they got.”

“After they fired me, I looked back at my Google doc and, was like: This would have been bad. They would not have liked it,” she told host Stephen Colbert.

Ruffin declined to reveal specific jokes from her White House Correspondents’ gig, but did talk about broader themes.

“But I was going to end it with, ‘This administration is trying to get you to hate other people and that’s not your natural state. Human beings are made to love one another, blah, blah, blah.’ But it’s true, and they got you by convincing you that you are filled with hate and you absolutely aren’t. It’s the opposite of what you’re made for, and saying that out loud now makes me glad that I got canceled.”

The WHCA annual dinner in the past has seen biting political commentary from guest entertainers like Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert and others. Colin Jost hosted the 2024 edition. This year, many of the Capital’s parties went on per the crowded usual, with just a slightly uneasy undercurrent.