John Oliver enlists help of Michael Keaton for scathing deep dive into the opioid crisis

He did not hold back.

John Oliver does not hold back.

His latest deep dive is proof of this. In his video for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, he tears into drug manufacturers and distributors for their role in the U.S. opioid crisis — an epidemic fuelled by fentanyl, OxyContin, and heroin.

Though he's covered the topic before, Oliver chose to tackle it again because statistics show an alarming number of people are dying from opioid addiction. According to figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there were over 72,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017.

As Oliver points out, there's a dearth of literally any video footage of OxyContin billionaire Richard Sackler talking -- so he enlisted the help of Michael Keaton to well and truly eviscerate the man.

Topics Health John Oliver

Rachel Thompson

Features Editor

Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.

A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.

Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.