Stephen Colbert breaks character to support his sister’s Congressional campaign

Stephen Colbert plays “Stephen Colbert” on Comedy Central, and in doing so on The Colbert Report, he has pretended to be a conservative talking airhead while mocking same, and also used satire to poke holes in our political process by launching his own PAC during the 2012 election cycle.

His sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, is running a very real election campaign right now in South Carolina. She is running as a Democrat for an open Congressional seat holding a primary election today.

Yesterday, “Stephen Colbert” broke character to support his sister via an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on the debut episode of his weekday program, The Lead.

As Colbert explained: “I’ve actually worked very hard not to get involved in an election because I think people expect me – and I don’t want to speak for Jon [Stewart], but people expected of Jon to exercise political power because we talk about politics a lot, and we did the rally and stuff like that.”

Blood is thicker than comedy? Something something. Cue the sincerity.

“She’s my sister and I’m willing to break the jewel of my own creation to try to do something for her. Like I’m not worried about what it would do to me or my show to try to help her as myself, not as my character but as myself, and if people don’t think that’s the right thing for me to do, I don’t care, it’s my sister and I’m willing to help her,” Colbert said.

Roll the video.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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