John Oliver in hysterics as Stephen Colbert jokes Liz Truss’s curtsy ‘killed the Queen’

John Oliver was left in hysterics after Stephen Colbert joked that Liz Truss was responsible for “killing the Queen” with her notoriously bad curtsy.

The Tory leader met Queen Elizabeth II on 6 September as one of her first acts as prime minister, during which she was pictured awkwardly curtsying for the monarch.

Two days later, the Queen died at Balmoral, with her funeral taking place on 19 September.

On Monday (7 November), British comedian Oliver was a guest on The Late Show, when Colbert asked him about the UK’s rapid recent run of prime ministers.

Colbert asked him for information about Rishi Sunak, who Oliver said was “wealthy beyond any real realistic expectation”.

“How’s his curtsy?” Colbert asked. “Because I don’t know if you saw Liz Truss’s curtsy, but it killed the queen. Her curtsy killed the queen.”

Oliver burst out in a fit of laughter and banged on the desk in hysterics.

“It did,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any bulls*** from CBS’s lawyers here. It did. Liz Truss, through her curtsy, killed the Queen, because the Queen looked at Liz Truss, thought, ‘You know what, I don’t want to do this anymore’ and died. That’s what happened.”

The audience applauded, while Colbert shouted: “That’s a fact. That is a verifiable blue check on that fact right there.”

“I’ve got eight dollars on me right now, you can blue check that fact,” Oliver replied, in reference to Elon Musk’s plans to make Twitter users pay to be verified on the platform.

Last week, Oliver laid into Sunak while presenting Last Week Tonight, saying: “Ultimately, Sunak is incredibly lucky that he’s following Liz Truss because the bar is so low right now.

“All he really has to do is not personally throw the economy into a tailspin and deliver a speech without leaving a weird pause for clapter.”