Seth Rogen tells Kelly Clarkson the story behind famous '40-Year-Old Virgin' line

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 5/12/21

Kelly Clarkson did not have a role in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but Steve Carell's character Andy screaming her name while getting waxed is one of the most enduring scenes from the 2005 comedy.

During Wednesday's episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, Seth Rogen cleared up once and for all for the singer-songwriter and host that he wrote the famous line.

"I'm terribly sorry, first of all," Rogen said. "I owe you an apology. It is true, yes. That is true. I was a co-producer on The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I was also in it, but I was a writer mostly by trade at the time, so I was hired to write. ... And we knew Carell was gonna be waxed, and he wouldn't be able to think clearly probably, so we wanted to just be able to feed him things to say."

He added: "I honestly think I was sitting on my couch writing the jokes, and you came on television. And I saw you. And it was Kelly Clarkson."

Previously, last June, Judd Apatow outed Rogen as the one at fault:

Apatow wrote and directed the film. Carell and Rogen were joined by the likes of Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann and Jane Lynch in the star-studded cast.

Carell admitted in 2018 that he was nervous to meet Clarkson, but he got past that and helped the first-ever American Idol winner premiere her eponymous show in September 2019 by recreating the scene: