John Cleese Airs Dirty Laundry With His Tour Promoter on Twitter Over Box-Office Figures

At his next live show, John Cleese is going to silly walk right up to the box office and demand to see the receipts.

As the online Monty Python fandom knows all too well, the spectrum of the late-career comedy legends’ social media presences stretches a wide range from Terry Gilliam’s infrequent behind-the-scenes Instagram posts about his illustrious filmography all the way to Cleese’s near-daily Twitter diatribes about whichever issue, personal or political, is most peeving him that morning. In 2024, Cleese operates in a peculiar, anti-woke, ostensibly liberal, conservative media-presenting space where he’s free to pick very public fights with whichever side of the culture war he wishes on any given day. 

But when he woke up this Monday morning, he decided that today’s target was someone within his own circle.

In his latest social media scuffle, Cleese implied impropriety on the part of his tour promoter, questioning why Howard Szegeti would refuse to reveal the return at the box office for his shows and claiming that Szegeti has been ducking his calls. Following the post, one follower asked him, “You realize this is your (Twitter) account, not your wife’s email?”

As he often does during his Twitter tirades, Cleese made the undignified decision to engage with the mouth-breathers and blue checks in his replies who attempted to steer the discussion over Cleese's very strange post toward his political leanings and his criticisms of conservative politicians. One such user posited over the financial discrepancies of Cleese's current tour and his missing promoter's actions, “He is embarrassed to tell you that introducing politics has deprived you of 55% of your audience.”

Cleese shot back, “He shouldn’t be. They are the people I was hoping to alienate.”

Another dissatisfied Twitter warrior replied to Cleese’s post, “Your one of my comedic heros (sic). What happened that your now always whinging about. You’ve become one of your old characters. (smiley face emoji)”

“I am surprised that you seem to think that the world is in a good state at the moment. I disagree,” Cleese wrote back, “So I’m trying to influence people to do something about it. Meanwhile, you can continue to stick your head in the sand...”

Sadly, this kind of confrontational exchange between Cleese and his followers over his personal problems isn’t unusual for the comedy legend’s Twitter feed. Back in February, both he and Eric Idle were embroiled in an uncomfortably public argument over Cleese's past treatment of his Monty Python castmates that somehow included ample participation from the peanut gallery. 

At 84 years old, Cleese is clearly past the point in his life when he would feel any embarrassment about making minor disagreements public matters, and everyone who has a bone to pick with the outspoken comic knows that they are up to 280 characters away from feuding with an elderly icon at any given moment.