VMAs host Sebastian Maniscalco under fire for joking about safe spaces in opening skit

The comedian teased the crowd about being 'triggered'

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco has come under fire for joking about safe spaces and participation trophies in his opening skit at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Just three minutes into his address, Maniscalco – the world’s 10th highest paid comedian last year according to Forbes – told the audience he had “a couple of announcements”.

“This is happening for the first time – MTV, what they’re doing is they’ve noticed that we’re living in ultra-sensitive times, right, so if you feel triggered or you feel offended by anything I’m saying up here or anything the musical artists are doing, they’re providing a safe space backstage where you’ll get some stress balls and a blankie,” he said.

“And also Lil Nas X brought his horse, which will double as an emotional support animal.”

He added: “Personally, I would remove you from the arena, put you in your car and send you home but they opted with the safe space.”

Maniscalco then moved on to another line about “feelings not getting hurt”, telling the audience: “MTV is doing this old-school tonight. They’re giving out one trophy per category.

“Not everybody’s walking away with a Moon Person [the VMAs trophy] or a participation ribbon. This is not Little League, so if you don’t win tonight, I do have a little advice for you: next year, work harder.”

The jokes – which came shortly after the comedian urged the crowd to put their phones away – received a good amount of claps and laughs in the room – though some attendees didn’t seem entirely convinced by the skit.

Several Twitter users have since criticised Maniscalco’s bit, pointing to a disparity between Maniscalco’s brand of humour and the VMAs’ young audience.

“The bizarre thing about Sebastian Maniscalco as host: his opener was full of bits (‘being triggered’/safe spaces) & references (Bruce Springsteen) that won’t connect with the present MTV audience. It was like they deliberately hired a baby boomer to taunt their own viewers,” one person wrote.

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“The absolute miscalculation of the VMAs to choose Sebastian Maniscalco as the host was self-evident but the fact that no one slashed his ‘millennials be on their phones’ and ‘if ur triggered there’s a safe space’ right out of the script is WILD,” someone else tweeted.

“Sebastian Maniscalco is a nerd whose joke about safe spaces and participation trophies going on for far longer than what’s needed to be funny (as if it was in the beginning) is making me cringe,” another person wrote.

Maniscalco, 46, was seen as Johnny Venere in Green Book and will appear as Joe “Crazy Joe” Gallo in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.