Sean Spicer sparked mixed reactions when he made a surprise appearance at the 2017 Emmy Awards on Sunday evening.
President Donald Trump's former press secretary shocked audiences when he wheeled a mobile podium on to the stage to join the show's host, Stephen Colbert, who was bashing the president in his monologue.
"This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period, both in person and around the world," Spicer boldly announced, a nod to the crowd size at Trump's inauguration in January as well as to Melissa McCarthy, who recently delivered a scathing impersonation of him on "Saturday Night Live."
"Wow," Colbert replied. "That really soothes my fragile ego."
Celebrities in the audience, including McCarthy, were stunned, Good Morning America noted.
Other celebrities took to social media to air their views on the segment.
"I'm not ready to laugh 'with' Sean Spicer," Zach Braff said. "I think he is an evil, opportunistic liar that hurt our country."
New Yorker writer, Michael Schulman, also weighed in on the matter, noting that Spicer should not get to be in on the joke.
"He told a ridiculous lie about the crowd size at the Inauguration on behalf of his ridiculous boss," he wrote. "When people say not to 'normalize' such transgressions, they're talking about stuff like this."
Meanwhile, Alec Baldwin defended Spicer, telling The Independent that "I think people in the business, the average person, is very grateful for him to have a sense of humor and participate."
He added that "Spicer was obviously compelled to do certain things that we might not have respected or we might not have admired, we might have been super critical of, in order to do his job but I've done some jobs that are things you shouldn't admire or respect me for either."
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