Whitney Cummings Stole The Show Last Night Absolutely ROASTING CNN On Their New Years Eve Broadcast
TV Insider - Whitney Cummings let loose on CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live special on Tuesday night (December 31) as she poked fun at hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, roasted 2024, and mocked the network’s ratings.
The comedian wasted no time with the jibes as she joined Cohen and Cooper to ring in the new year. She started by referencing Cooper’s former New Year’s Eve Live co-host, Kathy Griffin, who was dropped by the network in 2017 after she posed for a publicity photo of her holding up an effigy of Donald Trump‘s severed head.
“Was that thunder?” Cummings asked as she joined the co-hosts in New York City’s Times Square. “Are you sure? I thought it was Kathy Griffin screaming at you from the street. Are you sure? I think she’s cursing.”
Cummings went on to promote her 2025 tour, where she said she is “playing bigger and bigger venues.” She then made a dig at CNN’s ratings, saying, “I thought being a mom would mean that less people want to come see me. I’m now playing, like, 3000-seat theaters, which is about the viewership of CNN these days.”
The Undateable alum then roasted 2024, saying the year “needs to be held accountable for its behavior. That’s what white women do now. We point out other things that are toxic because we don’t get irony.”
Whitney Cummings is officially the MVP of New Year’s Eve. She secured her crown by absolutely torching CNN on its own New Year’s Eve broadcast last night. It was the roast of the year- and the year was only about five minutes old.
Before she came on, hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper were being their usual strange selves.
But this year, the standout moment wasn’t Cohen slinging shade at Ryan Seacrest. It was Whitney Cummings casually detonating a truth bomb about CNN’s ratings.
“I’m playing bigger and bigger venues now,” she said. “I thought being a mom would mean that less people would want to come see me. I’m now playing like 3,000-seat theaters, which is about the viewership of CNN these days. Not this show though. All eyes are on this show!”
Andy Cohen laughed nervously, Anderson Cooper did his best “please-don’t-make-me-address-this” chuckle, and somewhere in a dimly lit control room, a CNN executive probably started Googling “jobs at Food Network.”
Cummings didn’t stop there. Her “Roast of 2024” tackled more than just CNN’s ratings- she went after the Democrats, Hollywood, and even Pfizer. Here were the highlights:
“The Democrats couldn’t hold a primary… they were too busy holding a body upright.”
Brutal. If Biden had watched that live, he’d have asked Jill what channel “SNL” was on.
“Kamala was forced on us so hard, you’d think she was patented by Pfizer.”
A savage, well executed kill shot at both political tokenism and Big Pharma in one line. That’s efficiency.
“There’s this new thing where everything in Hollywood has to, like, lecture people how to vote and make you feel guilty about global warming. Can we just have entertainment that entertains?”
Preach, Whitney. Preach sister.
CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast has always been a bit of a trainwreck, but Whitney didn’t derail it- she rebranded it.
She joked at the end that she couldn't believe producers didn't yank her, or cut away, and let her continue to go, but kudos to them for letting her rant. CNN should be thrilled.
Instead of being the network’s annual attempt at relevance, it became the Whitney Cummings Comedy Hour. And the internet noticed. Clips of her set have been making the rounds, going virla as fuck all morning.
Even The One-Minute-Man himself paid homage -
This isn’t the first time CNN’s New Year’s Eve show has gone off the rails. Remember Don Lemon getting drunk and talking about his love life? Or Andy Cohen’s drunken rant about Mayor de Blasio? CNN has a track record of letting their New Year’s broadcast become a safe space for chaos, and Whitney’s roast fit right in.
But unlike previous years, where the moments felt accidental, Whitney’s burns were calculated. She didn’t slip up or overshare; she knew exactly what she was doing. She turned the roast into a comedic state of the union -one that left CNN laughing through clenched teeth, but one that contained some hard truths.
This country is a shitshow.
And according to Whitney, she ended up cutting some of her best material -
The best part of the whole thing might have been the points she brought up at the very end about things the mainstream media never covered -
The Trump shooter had no silverware in his entire house?
Why have so many presidents' chefs mysteriously died?
Whether CNN invites her back next year remains to be seen, but if they’re smart, they’ll give her a full hour and let her do her thing. Because that would be a ratings smash.
Here's her whole 7 minutes.
p.s. - I think I'm in love?