Legendary comedian Dana Carvey once took a joke too far and told Bill Gates he “looked like a turtle” — angering the billionaire enough to cause him to storm off the stage.
The SNL alum revealed he was asked to revive his iconic “Church Lady” character from his time on the sketch show during a performance alongside the Microsoft co-founder at an event.
“I’m in this giant arena and they are so intense about Bill Gates, he is like their god,” Carvey told Bill Maher during his Friday episode of “Real Time.”
“We have cue cards, I’m in the dress, he is there being Bill Gates — ‘Hello,’” Carvey continued in a mock impression of the billionaire.
“He’s got a little sweater.”
That’s when Carvey, in the condescending, religious character, decided to deviate from the script, putting his non-actor partner on the spot.
“It wasn’t on the script. I turn to him and said, “Well, well, well. We like ourselves don’t we. Apparently, we made a deal with the devil. The devil said we can have $100 billion dollars, but we’d have to go through life looking like a turtle,’” Carvey recalled.
The audience erupted in a roar of laughter, prompting Carvey to ask: “What, you feel he looks like a turtle? It was a joke!”
Gates apparently didn’t think so, however. The tech founder instead “walked off.”
Carvey claimed he tried to make nice with Gates and invited him to join The Church Lady in her “Superior Dance,” which she traditionally does after a day of “defeating Satan” because the whole situation had turned “really tense.”
“No, thank you. Goodbye,” Carvey said in imitation of Gates.
The “Wayne’s World” actor did not reveal what event — or when — the awkward interaction occurred but did say he’s been working on his Elon Musk impression.
Carvey had played the Tesla CEO on several SNL episodes after Trump won his re-election bid last year, but had recently been replaced by Mike Myers.
Musk had criticized Carvey’s portrayal of him at the time, saying on X: “Dana Carvey, just sounds like Dana Carvey.”
On Maher’s show Friday, Carvey gave a new taste of his Musk impression, saying, “We got to go to Mars, because we can’t sustain life on planet Earth. We gotta go to Mars, it’s just gonna be really cool, OK?”
The billionaires aren’t the only ones in danger of being mocked by Carvey — he rattled off a series of impressions, including Trump, Joe Biden, RFK, Jr and Paul McCartney.
