Watch: Anderson Cooper Cracks Up During Depardieu-Inspired Punning Spree

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CNN

What gives Anderson Cooper the giggles? Jokes about Gérard Depar-doo.

A combination of puns and potty humor reduced the normally stoic CNN host (disclosure: CNN, like TIME, is owned by Time Warner) to a quivering pile of giggles on Wednesday night. Cooper broke down as he outlined the antics of French actor Gérard Depardieu, who urinated into an empty bottle (and onto the carpet) during a flight on Tuesday. Cooper put Depardieu on his “Ridiculist” segment and then couldn’t keep his cool. “This has never happened to me before,” he said, keeling over and chuckling like a chipmunk.

Cooper featured Depardieu after the “thes-pee-in” created “his own jet stream” on a Paris-to-Dublin flight. (For more choice puns, watch the video.) “I need to piss, I need to piss,” the 62-year-old actor reportedly called out, but his entreaties went unheeded by cabin crew members, who asked him to wait 15 minutes for the seat-belt sign to go off.

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Depardieu then said, “No, I cannot wait,” according to a female passenger, before getting up and relieving himself in an empty bottle in the back of the plane. Unfortunately, his aim was faulty and some of the urine spilled onto the floor. Depardieu apparently said he was sorry and offered to clean it up himself.

After the incident, the actor was thrown off the flight and the plane was grounded while crew members spent two hours scrubbing the carpet. “The hostess was shocked, but nothing was said — everything was done courteously,” said the female passenger on France’s Europe 1 radio, adding, “He could’ve waited a couple of minutes.”

Depardieu’s traveling companions said they had no choice but to offer him the bottle, however, given his “irrepressible need.” They noted that he had tried to urinate “as discreetly as possible.”

The airline, CityJet, confirmed the incident but declined to name the person involved. Instead, it made light of the event on Twitter. “We are busy mopping the floor of one of our planes this morning,” read one tweet. A second read, “We’d also like to remind all passengers that our planes are fully equipped with toilet facilities.”

The episode may rocket Depardieu to the top of the list of France’s most irritating celebrities. In a 2010 poll, he placed third behind First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and film star Alain Delon.

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