Last Updated on February 26, 2023
Award-winning actor Woody Harrelson mocked lockdown policies and likened pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna to drug cartels in his Saturday Night Live opening monologue this weekend.
Harrelson, 61, said that he came up with a movie idea where drug cartels lock everyone in their houses and force the public to consume their products.
“So the movie goes like this,” he said. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes.”
“And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over,” Harrelson joked. “I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.”
Harrelson’s joke was met with praise by many, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted about the monologue. The tech mogul responded with a “target” emoji, suggesting that Harrelson’s monologue was on the mark. “Maybe they don’t realize their propaganda is wrong?” Musk later added in response to scattered criticism of Harrelson.
Critics labelled Harrelson as an “anti-vaxxer” and a “conspiracy theorist” in response to the joke. “Yes, Woody Harrelson went full anti-vax conspiracy theorist during his SNL Monologue tonight,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Marlow Stern. The Daily Beast, Huffington Post and Variety also branded Harrelson with similar labels.