At the Emmy Awards on Monday Billy Crystal paid a touching tribute to his friend Robin Williams.

Taking to the stage at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, Billy said: “He made us laugh, hard… He made us laugh, big time. I spent many hours with Robin onstage.

“I mean, the brilliance was astounding, the relentless energy was, kind of, thrilling. I used to think if I could just put a saddle on him and stay on for eight seconds I would be Ok…”

He continued, “As genius as he was onstage, he was the greatest friend you could ever imagine: supportive, protective, loving. It’s very hard to talk about him in the past because he was so present in all of our lives.

“For almost 40 years, he was the brightest star in the comedy galaxy. But while some of the brightest of our celestial bodies are actually extinct now, their energy long since cooled, but miraculously, because they float in the heavens so far away from us now, their beautiful light will continue to shine on us forever and the glow will be so bright, it will warm your heart, it will make your eyes glisten and you’ll think to yourselves, ‘Robin Williams, what a concept.'”

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