Ron Jeremy Gets Oscar Shout-Out

HOLLYWOOD—If there was any doubt as to the breadth of Ron Jeremy's celebrity, it was summarily squashed Sunday night when Seth MacFarlane mentioned him during the first few breaths of his hosting gig at the 85th annual Academy Awards. Joking about the number of rejections Oscar organizers must have gotten from potential hosts before they arrived at him, MacFarlane cracked, "From Whoopi all the way down to Ron Jeremy, it eventually found its way to me." As he quoted just prior to invoking Jeremy's name, the Oscars draw approximately 1 billion viewers around the world. And regardless of whether all 1 billion of those people actually know who Ron Jeremy is—or whether he was referenced merely as the butt of a joke—the mere fact that his name made its way into one of MacFarlane's opening lines would suggest that it has officially reached household status on a global scale. Good thing Ron made it through his recent heart surgery well enough to be able to bask in this, easily his biggest taste of the spotlight ever. See Seth MacFarlane's opening monologue from the 2013 Oscars here.