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Ricky Gervais negotiated Judi Dench privates joke before 2020 Golden Globes

How many words for female genitalia are there?

It sounds like Ricky Gervais went through all of them while negotiating a joke about 85-year-old Judi Dench‘s unmentionables for this year’s Golden Globes in January.

Appearing via video on Tuesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” the five-time Globes host said he had to run his jokes past a cabal of lawyers to ensure he wasn’t violating any libel laws or broadcasting decency standards. The lawyers signed off on a litany of outré jests but, as Gervais recalled, they blanched when they learned of his proposed jab at Dench and her film flop “Cats.”

Repeating the joke to Meyers, Gervais said: “Dame Judi Dench said it was the role she was born to play. She likes nothing more than plonking herself down on the carpet, lifting her leg and licking her own minge.”

Gervais — who has earned a reputation for delivering barbed jokes targeting celebrities during the broadcast’s opening monologue — said the attorneys were concerned with his use of the slang word, but, “I said, ‘It’s a British term, it’s a cute term, it’s not offensive, it’s not a swear word.'”

According to Gervais, one of the lawyers looked up the word in the dictionary and complained that it was vulgar, suggesting Gervais use the word vagina instead.

“I went, ‘I’m not going to say vagina! That’s worse, that’s so clinical,’” noted Gervais.

“So we went through words that I might be able [to use],” the “Extras” star said. “All I’m trying to do is [to have] them not bleep it because it sort of ruins it. So I persuaded them that minge was fine.”

“They said they wouldn’t bleep it,” Gervais continued, “and they still did but I knew they would so I pointed [toward his crotch].”