John Cleese has “always loathed and despised” Eric Idle

Direct from the argument clinic, Monty Python’s John Cleese and Eric Idle have differing opinions about the group’s management

By Matt Schimkowitz | February 14, 2024 | 12:19am

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John Cleese has “always loathed and despised” Eric Idle

John Cleese and Eric Idle Photo: Dave J Hogan

Ever the source of sound, thoughtful commentary, John Cleese has alerted fans to the fact that he and fellow Monty Python member Eric Idle have “always loathed and despised each other.” This comes in response to Idle telling Twitter followers that Python’s finances are a “disaster” due to mismanagement of the group by manager Holly Gilliam, daughter of American Python Terry Gilliam.

Yesterday, Idle expressed concerns about the lack of safety controls on Twitter, a fair complaint, considering CEO Elon Musk all but shuttered his Trust and Safety Council and later announced a new Trust and Safety team after his site visitors spread non-consensual A.I. porn of the most famous woman on Earth. The lack of moderation is a problem that every glutton for punishment still using the site experiences, and a problem not addressed in the replies. When a follower told him to spend some of that Spamalot money on a premium account—among the worst uses of money in these troubled times—he responded: “I don’t know why people always assume we’re loaded. Python is a disaster. Spamalot made money 20 years ago. I have to work for my living. Not easy at this age.”

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“We own everything we ever made in Python, and I never dreamed that at this age, the income streams would tail off so disastrously,” he continued. “But I guess if you put a Gilliam child in as your manager, you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”

John Cleese had had enough and defended his manager, saying that the other living Pythos agree with him:

“I have worked with Holly [Gilliam] for the last 10 years, and I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hardworking, and pleasant to have dealings with,” Cleese tweeted. Michael Palin has asked me to make it clear that he shares this opinion. Terry Gilliam is also in agreement with this.”

But he wasn’t done yet. When a fan asked him about a falling out between the two, Cleese revealed that, actually, he and Idle have always hated each other. “We always loathed and despised each other,” he tweeted, “but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge.”

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Cleese has long stoked the flames of culture war by rejecting so-called cancel culture, supporting Brexit, and standing up for oppressed, millionaire transphobes at the expense of his reputation. Idle, conversely, uses the site to call John Cleese an “entitled git” and tweet things like “fuck Netflix and fuck documentaries.” But he also has a much more level-headed view of the victimization funhouse that Mr. Cleese lives inside, where white guys are supposedly struggling to espouse their hatred publicly in a way that the broader culture accepts.

Despite the far-reaching tendrils of cancel culture, Cleese, who has been canceled many times and is continuously canceled into cancelation every second of every day (seriously, this guy cannot keep up with the frequency of his own cancelations), has plenty of projects coming up. In 2024, he writes that he has a Fawlty Towers stage show, a Life Of Brian stage show, an A Fish Called Wanda musical, an American version of Fawlty Towers, three tours, and more. That cancel culture, it’ll get you.