Ricky Gervais dubbed Nostradamus after his 2016 tweet about Trump presidency and drinking bleach resurfaces
Fans compared comedian Ricky Gervais to the late French astrologer, Nostradamus, who was famous for accurately predicting events of the future after they dug up a tweet of his from 2016 where he seemed to have predicted President Donald Trump's recent recommendation that injecting bleach can prevent coronavirus.
On April 23, POTUS said: "And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors with – but it sounds interesting to me.”
This caused quite a stir in the US with health officials and disinfectant companies scrambling to release statements telling people not to drink or inject themselves with the harmful chemicals and Trump was forced to walk back his comments by saying that he was just being "sarcastic."
Meanwhile, back in March 2016, when Trump was still on his way to securing the Republican nomination in the presidential race and still seen as someone unlikely to succeed former President Barack Obama, Gervais shared his fears about a Trump presidency with his Twitter followers.
"The fact that there are warnings like 'Do not drink' on bottles of bleach makes me realize that Donald Trump can become president," he said. Although he did not exactly predict that Trump will one day be telling his country's men to inject themselves with bleach in order to fight a deadly virus, he is being hailed by people on social media as a great predictor.
Tennis champion Martina Navratilova replied to the tweet April 26, saying, "Ricky - you were way ahead of the curve!!!"
Meanwhile, others branded 'The Office' star a "visionary" and a "prophet" like Nostradamus and asked him to pick this week's lottery numbers.
Gervais recently made headlines after he slammed celebrities who were complaining about the lockdown from their million-dollar mansions while frontline health workers were putting in 14-hour shifts while placing their lives at risk.
While Gervais has made a career out of being outspoken and saying the things most others wouldn't dare say, the stand-up comedian and actor recently insisted that he wasn't "nasty" and "uncaring," and that it was all part of a character.
"I think that I've got a reputation that's sort of like a shock jock or I don't care what I say, or I don't care about people's feelings, which is, that's totally untrue," he said, adding that he still very much had a conscience. "I don't want people to think I'm horrible, nasty, uncaring because I'm not. I feared fame because of all those reasons."
The 58-year-old went on to explain that, just because he was not doing his stand-up bits as a character like some of his peers, didn't mean what he was saying had to be taken literally. He said he still considered himself to be in character while performing these acts. Gervais has frequently been critical of Trump, comparing him to his attention-seeking character, boss David Brent, from 'The Office.'
"I don't want people to think that I'm a racist, misogynist, homophobe because they've got the target mixed up with the subject," he stressed. "People don't quite understand that with character. They get it when you call yourself David Brent, but when you're live, they don't get that Ricky Gervais on stage is a character as well, to a certain extent. I come out and do a joke and I say, 'that was irony.' That's when I say something I don't really mean."