British comedian John Cleese has joined the chorus of “anti-woke” voices in entertainment, so, one might expect in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Cleese would support the granddaddy of all anti-woke curmudgeons, Donald Trump. On June 4, however, Cleese defied expectations when he weighed in on his White House pick.
Show biz is famously liberal, but that doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have his supporters among its ranks. Actors who support the former president’s return to the Oval Office include Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Scott Baio, and Roseanne Barr. But Cleese is no fan of Trump, though he has spoken out against “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” whatever those terms might mean — two of Trump supporters’ favorite gripes.
In 2023, the Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star shared a controversial X post that compared Trump — unfavorably — to Adolf Hitler. (Cleese apologized.) And back in 2020, Cleese swiped at then-POTUS Trump when Trump caught COVID-19. “A doctor friend of mine tells me that COVID-19 symptoms include delusions of grandeur, compulsive attention-seeking, extreme narcissism…” Cleese said when Trump’s COVID diagnosis was announced.
John Cleese will “silly walk” to the voting booth for Biden
About six months after John Cleese‘s Trump-Hitler comparison, the comedian announced he would vote for Biden. “I’m supporting Biden, who is fundamentally a decent man, because he is running against a disgusting one, whose main aim is to establish a dictatorship in which his swollen ego can run the country,” Cleese’s X post said.
Response from Cleese’s followers was mixed, but in general, it seemed his recent “anti-woke” stance may have attracted some MAGA supporters to the comments. “Sorry John, I love you as an Actor, but this is 100% false,” Do It For The Gif-fer said.
Cleese, 84, is English, and as he explained in a 2018 post on what was then Twitter, his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren are American citizens. But Cleese’s voting eligibility in the U.S. is unclear, so it’s unknown if the “support” Cleese mentioned will translate to a vote in November.