Larry David says he doesn’t regret attacking Elmo.
Hours after he attacked and apologized to the puppet on Today, David paid a visit to Late Night with Seth Meyers where he was asked about the incident.
“The clip is sort of going around online, Larry. You can’t hide from this anymore,” said Meyers, who described the iconic Sesame Street character as “loved by all.”
“Yeah, I did it,” David snapped back. “Elmo was talking, I was waiting to be interviewed.”
Suddenly the Curb Your Enthusiasm star switched to his best Elmo impression and said, “He was going on about mental health, and I had to listen to every word. And I was going, ‘Oh my God, Oh my God. I don’t think I can take another second of this!’”
Switching to his normal voice, David added, “And I approached him, and I throttled him! I couldn’t take it.”
“And you know what? I would do it again,” the 76-year-old quipped, eliciting gasps from the studio audience.
Elmo can’t seem to catch a break this week. On Monday, he tweeted to check in on his Twitter followers with a simple, “How is everybody doing?” He definitely didn’t expect over 18,000 replies with folks trauma dumping in his mentions.
The situation was dire enough to prompt Elmo to visit Today on Thursday to talk about the viral tweet.
“Elmo is really, really happy, and Elmo’s glad that he got to talk to a lot of people and see how they’re doing,” said the fictional character in corporeal form.
“It’s important to remember that we all have a lot of feelings, and that’s okay,” Elmo added. “It’s good to know what feeling you’re having, if you’re feeling sad, or worried, or confused, you can talk to someone that you know and trust. And it’s good to talk about it.”
After being attacked on live TV by the actor, Elmo urged an immediate intervention with the Seinfeld co-creator, saying, “Let’s get back on the couch and let’s talk about how you’re feeling.”
Elmo did not comment on David retracting his apology at publishing time.
