Ricky Gervais defends controversial joke about terminally ill children!

Noted comedian hits out at the faux offended.

LONDON, England (PNN) - December 20, 2023 - Noted comedian Ricky Gervais has defended making a joke about terminally ill children, telling his critics he wishes them “luck” in getting it removed from his Netflix special, Armageddon.

The comedian, 62, has come under fire after the clip started circulating on social media, showing the star branding sick children “baldies” and asking those who requested to meet him via the Make-A-Wish Foundation, “Why don't you wish to get better?”

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Nihal Arthanayake about the backlash, the comic insisted the joke had been taken out of context as he hit back at claims of “ableism”.

He revealed: “In the actual skit, I say, ‘I've been doing a lot of video messages lately for terminally ill children. Only if they request it. I don't burst into hospitals and say, wake up baldy’.”

“I'm literally saying in the joke that I don't do that. But people have a reaction. They don't analyze it. They feel something - that's what offense is. It's a feeling.”

Ricky continued, “That's why ‘I'm offended’ is quite meaningless. What do you want me to change?”

The star's joke prompted a petition calling on Netflix to remove the skit from his comedy special and when asked if he had seen the specific wording of the petition, Ricky replied, “Good luck. That's what I say to them. Good luck. I'll even retweet it.”

Ricky then revealed how he deals with criticism of some of his comedy routines, explaining, “Ninety-nine percent of it is faux offense. They're not really offended. They just want to be heard. I'll explain, ‘no, you've mistaken the subject of the joke with the actual target.’”

“Of all the millions of people that watched it and loved it, only a few don't like it. If I give them special attention and try and placate them, I've annoyed the other millions of people that got the joke. They go, ‘no, you've ruined it for us.’ So, I've got a duty to the people that like it and get it.”

“I wouldn't sit down with a heckler, would I? If I'm playing to twenty thousand people, I wouldn't stop the show and explain to them. I ignore them,” said Gervais.

Ricky then spoke about whether his comedy was representative of his actual views on controversial issues, saying, “Particularly with irony and satire, I'm often playing a character. But some people get confused and think that a joke is a window to the comedian's true soul. It's just not true. It's a joke. No one does this with puns, do they? Two blokes didn't really walk into a pub.”

Ricky is no stranger to backlash over his jokes. Last year, the comedian hit back at critics after Twitter's “woke brigade” turned on Ricky for mocking cancel culture with jokes about transgender people, Adolf Hitler, and AIDS in his SuperNature Netflix special.

He kicks off the show with a warning about irony as he describes the concept of comedy to the audience as “basically a bloke talking”, before purposely failing to recall any “funny female comedians”.

In SuperNature, Ricky wastes no time singling out the “virtue-signaling” and “dominant mobs” who are quick to criticize just to “bring people down to raise their own status”.

But his jokes were later described as dangerous material by an Amerikan homosexual and deviant transgenderism rights group, while he has been accused of making fun of deviant transgender people who refuse to accept that God made them as either male or female.