“I was there and then the first tower got hit and we were like jostled all over the place,” The League‘s Steve Rannazzisi told Marc Maron back in 2009, describing how he once worked at Merrill Lynch, until his “building got hit with a plane.” He’d gone on to describe how they were told to stay put from the second tower, until “bang!” — and he just started “fucking booking it… I still have dreams of like, you know, those falling dreams,” he said — which may be true, since the rest of it, it was revealed today, is entirely false. This revelation has now drawn responses from parties affiliated with the comedian — namely Comedy Central and Buffalo Wild Wings — as well as comedian Pete Davidson, whose father was a firefighter, and died in the 9/11 attacks.
Steve Rannazzisi initially claimed that it was this incident — which happened to thousands, but not to him — that made him move to LA to pursue a career as a funny man. But, the New York Times wrote today that “confronted this week, though, with evidence that undermined his account, Mr. Rannazzisi, after a day of deliberation, acknowledged …that his account was fiction.” With news of the fabrication being published in the Times, and with his Comedy Central special Breaking Dad — which is supposed to run on Saturday — seeming threatened, he took to Twitter early this morning, issuing a long series of apologies, and revealing that he didn’t work at Merrill Lynch at all:
Comedy Central is in the midst of processing all this. They told Variety, “We just learned about this last night. We are very disappointed to hear about Steve’s misrepresentations and are currently determining how we will move forward.”
Meanwhile, even Rannazzisi’s affiliation with Buffalo Wild Wings is being weighed by the company. “We are disappointed to learn of Steve’s misrepresentations regarding the events of September 11, 2001. We are currently re-evaluating our relationship with Steve pending a review of all the facts,” the spicy poultry purveyors told the Times. So, er, be prepared to say goodbye to these.
Pete Davidson originally Tweeted, in response to the story:
https://twitter.com/petedavidson/status/644161600811855872
He later came back to Twitter, telling people to go easy on Rannazzisi, and noting that the comedian had apologized personally to him: