Comedian Tom Green officially becomes an American citizen: 'I'm tired of not voting, frankly'
Comedian Tom Green is getting serious.
Twenty years after the Canadian star of Road Trip and The Tom Green Show became a phenomenon on MTV — remember the “Bum Bum Song”? — and coming off his stint on the latest season of Celebrity Big Brother, Green has become an American citizen.
Green took the oath of allegiance to the country during a naturalization ceremony Wednesday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The 47-year-old was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, before moving stateside when MTV decided to add his show, airing exclusively in the Great White North at the time, to its lineup.
He tells Yahoo Entertainment that he decided to become an American citizen, while still maintaining his Canadian citizenship, for a simple reason.
“I’ve sort of become tired of not voting, frankly,” says Green, who was voted “America’s Favorite House Guest” on Celebrity Big Brother. “I mean, I live in the United States. I’ve lived here for 20 years, I feel like I would like to be part of the political process and part of the democratic process and vote in the next election, and that’s why.”
He says it was just time and that it’s not because his “old boss,” Donald Trump, is in the White House. Green was fired from the third episode of Celebrity Apprentice, which aired in the spring of 2009. He prefers to keep his personal politics to himself these days, although he’s broached the subject of Trump in the past.
“I talk [in live shows] about how it demystifies the presidency when you’ve sat there and had him scream in your face,” Green told the Guardian in June 2017 of his comedy routines at the time. “‘Wow, that guy’s the president? I really should’ve gone up for all of those jobs in my life that I never felt qualified for.'”
Today, Green says his approach to politics in his act is more general.
“I don’t really wear my political leanings on my sleeves in my comedy, like a lot of comedy and a lot of comedians do today. I do talk about some of my experiences that I had on Celebrity Apprentice with the president of the United States and, you know, I will allude to some opinions about that,” Green says.
He adds that most of his takes are about being human and universal subjects, such as being addicted to social media and cellphones.
“I don’t really get completely into the right vs. left political discourse in my set, just because I’m touring all over the country. I want my comedy show to be a place that is a reprieve from the partisan bickering. I mean, I know there’s a lot of standup comedians today and a lot of comedy on television certainly, that find a lot of material in critiquing the current administration and… I have done some of that, but my comedy is more about having fun and I want my show to be fun for everybody.”
He says, “That doesn’t mean that I don’t have strong opinions about it, I just don’t really publicly talk about it.”
Green has shows planned through the rest of the year, at venues from Singapore to San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C. His new movie, Iron Sky the Coming Race, will be out in the spring.
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