Amy Schumer got the okay from stars to joke about them at the Oscars

LOS ANGELES • Oscars co-host Amy Schumer revealed that the targets of her jokes during the ceremony knew she was going to poke fun at them.

The actress-comedienne said she had spoken to actors Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, before the Oscars on March 27.

"I did reach out to people I was going to joke about before and make sure it was okay with them because I've been burnt too many times," she said in an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday.

She said she "didn't want the camera to cut to somebody looking sad" and added they were all fine with her jokes.

Schumer, 40, made fun of DiCaprio's romances while mentioning his movie about climate change, Don't Look Up. She implied that the 47-year-old star cared so much about leaving the planet a better place because of his girlfriends, who tended to be much younger than him.

She also brought up Smith's Oscar-winning role in King Richard, saying: "After years of Hollywood ignoring women's stories, this year, we finally got a movie about the incredible Williams sisters' dad."

That same night, Smith, 53, gained infamy for taking offence at a joke about his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, by comedian Chris Rock, 57, and assaulting him on stage.

A segment of the show saw Schumer going into the audience to actor Jesse Plemons, 34, and asking if his wife, actress Kirsten Dunst, 39, was a seat filler.

Despite Plemons and Dunst being in on the joke beforehand, Schumer said she received death threats, with outraged fans telling her: "Who do you think you are to disrespect Kirsten Dunst like that?"