Actress and author Leah Remini stopped by Wendy Williams’s talk show Tuesday morning to promote her new A&E docuseries, Scientology and the Aftermath. But before broaching the dark subject of escaping a cult and attempting to reconnect with estranged family members, the two discussed less sinister topics, like Remini’s upcoming birthday.
“I got a friend to choreograph a lap dance for him. So I put on lingerie that, within two minutes in, was hurting me.”
“Cootie cutters,” Williams declares. “We’ve all been there.”
The outrageously lengthy story of her doomed lap dance (set to TLC’s “Red Light Special,” by the way) is told in an almost exhausted tone, as though Remini is sick of pulling it out of her back pocket to grudgingly entertain people with at a cocktail party.
But after she delivers the punchline (which was that her husband abruptly ended the sexy birthday dance by saying, “I’ve gotta pee,” while she was straddling him), Wendy looks into the camera, shakes her head, and says, “Men.” As the audience goes wild, she continues her perfect segue-cum-record scratch without missing a beat. “Congratulations on this life that you’ve been living after Scientology.” And it’s extremely effective.
Here’s how the Wendy audience reacts to “Men”:
And here’s how they react to, “Congratulations on this life that you’ve been living after Scientology”:
Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and ask about Xenu.
If you’d like to skip Leah’s lap dance story, Wendy’s transition begins at 3:30 in the video above.