Woody Harrelson has become a darling of the far-right after pushing a wild vaccine conspiracy theory during his SNL monologue
- Woody Harrelson has drawn praise from Twitter's far-right fringe for his SNL monologue.
- Harrelson pushed an anti-vaccine theory about big pharmaceutical companies being "drug cartels."
Actor Woody Harrelson has landed a new role after his "Saturday Night Live" monologue: darling of the far-right fringe.
On Saturday, Harrelson told a rambling story about a "crazy" movie script he read in 2019 while smoking weed in Central Park.
"The movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes," Harrelson said. "And people can only come out if they take the cartel's drugs and keep taking them over and over."
Harrelson's comments seemed to reference a widely debunked fringe theory that big pharmaceutical companies created the COVID-19 pandemic to make money off vaccines.
Far-right Twitter users lauded Harrelson on Saturday night, praising him for speaking up on a platform like SNL. Some Twitter users said Harrelson had dropped a "massive red pill," a right-wing slang term for becoming "enlightened."
"This guy didn't play along with Covid theater and prays for those who did or had no choice," wrote Jack Lombardi, a failed GOP congressional candidate from Illinois.
"Woody Harrelson sums up the Covid scam perfectly," tweeted far-right reporter Avi Yemini. Yemini's post was re-tweeted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who is also known for supporting anti-vaccine disinformation.
Even Elon Musk was impressed by Harrelson. In response to the video of Harrelson's monologue, Musk tweeted: "Good one."
"So based. Nice work @nbcsnl!" Musk wrote in a separate tweet about Harrelson's monologue.
Musk tweeted in January that he is "pro vaccines" in general, but claimed without substantiation that there is "a point where the cure/vaccine is potentially worse, if administered to the whole population, than the disease."
Some people were less amused by Harrelson's monologue, rebuking SNL for giving his anti-vaccine messaging a platform on their show.
"Thank you, @nbcsnl, for Woody Harrelson's insipid anti-vax monologue," tweeted TV producer Lee Goldberg. "Maybe invite Kanye back while you're at it."
"I like Woody Harrelson in his film roles. I also like that we live in a society where we are open for him to express his opinions," tweeted psychiatrist Benjamin Janaway. "That said, we are also allowed to disagree, in part or entirety, with them, contrasting them with the evidence. Celebrity status isn't evidence."
Saturday was Harrelson's fifth time hosting SNL. He was there to promote his new movie, "Champions."
Representatives for Harrelson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.