HBO's John Oliver Slams Baltimore Mayor Pugh's 'Healthy Holly' Book Deals On 'Last Week Tonight'
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — British comedian John Oliver went after Mayor Catherine Pugh over the controversy around her self-published "Healthy Holly" books.
The segment was inspired by a scandal that comes amid several investigations into her business deals, from a variety of places- including the state prosecutor's office, the City's Board of Ethics, the City's law department, the state insurance commissioner and an internal audit from the UMMS.
TIMELINE: Mayor Catherine Pugh's 'Healthy Holly' Book Scandal
Pugh announced last Monday that she would be taking a leave of absence to recover from pneumonia that left her hospitalized for five days.
Oliver joined many city officials in also calling for her resignation, and slammed her "Healthy Holly" dealings with great humor.
On "Last Week Tonight" Oliver recapped the scandal and then poked fun at the books themselves, finding errors within the books, including misspelling "vegetable" as "vegetale".
"It is hard to believe Pugh's books were bought purely on the base of literary merit," Oliver said. "In her educational children's book about eating right, she spelled [expletive] vegetable wrong!"
He then moved on to going over clips from her press conference defending herself before going on leave, where she announced her side project of children's clothes that encouraged children to "walk, run, crawl, skip, dance" and Oliver left viewers with this message:
"While there have been no formal charges so far the whole thing does not look good for Baltimore's mayor," Oliver said. "And unless there's a very good explanation here that I can't see and does not exist, it might be better for her to read the writing on the onesie and walk, run, crawl, skip or dance her way out of office,"
You can watch the full segment in the video above.
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