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Arts & Entertainment

Sean Spicer Wore A Disguise While Heading To L.A. For Emmys Normalization Tour

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Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks onstage during the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 17, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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On Sunday, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer made a surprise appearance at the Emmys, where he poked fun at himself and the fact that he repeatedly lied to the American people. The New York Times reports that Spicer "donned a disguise" when he left Washington D.C. on Saturday to head west for the awards show.

According to the New York Times, Spicer's appearance had been in the works for several days, and Spicer gave neither the president nor senior White House staff a heads-up about the appearance beforehand:

In fact, virtually no one knew about it. According to Mr. Spicer, Mr. Colbert suggested the idea himself, and passed it to the former press secretary through his producer at CBS, who had gotten to know Mr. Spicer well years earlier when he was a producer on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Although Spicer wouldn’t disclose what his disguise was, "a friend of his hinted that it might have included fake facial hair." Spicer also reportedly stayed in his hotel room before the awards show, "leaving only for a walk-through that took place after the hall had been cleared. When scripts were handed out to crew members and performers, his name was nowhere to be found — replaced by an innocuous surname that began with the letter 'S.'"

Spicer also told the New York Times that he regrets berating the press over their accurate portrayal of the inaugural crowd size. “Of course I do, absolutely,” Spicer told the Times.

Luckily for him, Spicer was given the opportunity to make light of the January 22 incident during the Emmys, when he was welcomed to the stage at the end of Stephen Colbert's opening monologue, wheeling a faux-press room podium and joking that "This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period. Both in person and around the world."

According to early reports, actual ratings for the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards appear to have to have matched last year's all-time lows. In other fun news, Sean Spicer once denied that Hitler used chemical weapons while serving in an official capacity as White House press secretary (Hitler gassed millions of Jews at his "Holocaust centers," as Spicer would refer to them).

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Related: Sean Spicer Made A Surprise Emmys Appearance (The Surprise Being That We've Normalized Sean Spicer!)

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