Comedian Will Ferrell mercilessly poked fun at then-President George W. Bush for years on Saturday Night Live! Now, more than a decade after Bush left the White House, Ferrell has apologized to the former commander-in-chief for one thing in particular.
Ferrell appeared on TODAY With Hoda & Jenna on Monday to promote his upcoming Christmas comedy musical Spirited, along with co-stars Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer and Sunita Mani. At one point, the show's co-host Hoda Kotb brought up Ferrell's parody of Jenna Bush's famous dad, George W.
"I haven't been in practice with George in a long time," Ferrell told the hosts before launching into a Bush impression.
"Here's a funny story: I didn't realize that I never said 'strategery,'" Ferrell said in his famed faux-Bush voice, squinting his eyes. "Someone else wrote that."
"That's true," Jenna Bush said, laughing. She then mentioned that SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels told her father that he'd never actually said the word, but that the writers had made it up for the skit.
The TODAY host added: "We had this conversation before: That Lorne Michaels told my dad, 'You never said that,' and he said, 'What? I spent all those years [thinking I'd said it.]' But you knew all along!"
"Oh, I knew all along," Ferrell agreed, slightly grimacing.
After someone suggested that the actor "owed someone an apology," Ferrell looked straight into the camera and said, "I'm—I'm sorry, Mr. President," with a laugh.
The bit that spawned the TODAY With Hoda & Jenna banter aired during Season 26 of the long-running comedy sketch show. In the 2000 skit, Bush squared off with Democratic nominee Al Gore during a presidential debate.
Ferrell's version of Bush fumbled question after question before getting asked by the moderator to "sum up in a single word the best argument for his candidacy."
Fake Bush's word? "Strategery."
The real former president in 2017 told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel about a conversation he had with Michaels.
"I had dinner with Lorne Michaels, the head of Saturday Night Live, and he said, 'I put a great speechwriter on you, and he came up with 'strategery,'" Bush told Kimmel.
The real Bush continued: "And I said, 'Wait a minute, I said strategery.' And [Michaels] said, 'No, you didn't say strategery.' I said, 'I damn sure said 'strategery.' He said, 'We invented it.' I said, 'Well, let me ask you this, did he come up with misunderestimate?'"
Bush also claimed during the Kimmel interview that none of the impersonations ever bothered him.
Newsweek reached out to representatives for Ferrell for comment.
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