The one award show celebrity insult Ricky Gervais regrets

Ricky Gervais has confessed there’s one Hollywood celeb he wishes he hadn’t insulted on stage at the 2011 Golden Globes.

Ricky Gervais isn’t the type of comedian who looks back on his past jokes with regret – but there is one moment from the 2011 Golden Globes that he does wish he could take back.

While hosting the awards show, he introduced actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and in the process insulted the Home Improvement star after praising Hank’s long list of career highlights. Gervais admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that Allen “took (the joke) the wrong way”.

“I think he took it wrong. The joke was him and Tom Hanks. So I came out and said, ‘Our next two presenters, the first has won five Oscars, combined box office of five billion dollars. And the other, Tim Allen’. Right? It’s a fine joke. I’m teasing Tim Allen. But anyone standing next to Tom Hanks, unless it’s Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford or Robert De Niro, that could be me. But it happened to be Tim Allen.

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“And I have nothing against Tim Allen. He’s a good actor. He’s probably a nice bloke. So even though there’s no malice and I can justify it comedically and everyone laughed, I didn’t want Tim Allen to think, ‘Oh, that was written for me. Why me?’ Well, because you were standing next to Tom Hanks.”

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The 58-year-old Brit is back as this year’s Golden Globes MC and said he was changing up his comedy a little but not going after any one person in particular.

“I think I’ll go after the general community. I’d go after cinema and I’d go after television and I’d go after actors and I’ll go after pretension and hypocrisy,” he explained. “You know what I mean? I’d go after those big, nebulous things where they can all feel I’m not picking on any one person. I’m never going to point to someone and say, ‘You had a bad year, mate’, you know?”

It’ll be the fifth time Gervais hosts. “It’s fun … I try and make it a spectator sport. I try and play the outsider,” he explained.

Gervais says Home Improvement star Tim Allen ‘took the joke the wrong way’.

The Office creator also described his joke-writing process and how he’d be paying more attention to the gravity of his words this time around. “I start writing immediately (after getting the job),” he said. “Before I decide to do it, I have to go, ‘Have I got anything? What’s happened?’ … I write jokes and they’re considered and I make sure they’re bulletproof.

“Nowadays, you’ve got to make sure they’re bulletproof in 10 years time, with people going through saying, ‘He said this once, 10 years (ago)’,” Gervais said, citing Kevin Hart’s Oscar controversy last year. “There’s more pressure on making (the jokes bulletproof). It’s the world (watching). This isn’t me in a comedy club.”

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission