Jimmy Carr Says He's Going To Be 'Cancelled' And 'Will Go Down Swinging'

Comedian Jimmy Carr has said he is 'going down swinging' amid beliefs he is going to become a target of cancel culture.

The 8 Out Of 10 Cats host candidly addressed the notion of being 'cancelled' as he performed his Terribly Funny show at the Whitley Bay Playhouse last night, February 5, after receiving backlash for comments he made about the Holocaust on his new Netflix show His Dark Materials.

Carr's joke in the show made reference to the murder of all those killed under the Nazi regime, and though he has not addressed the entire public in response, he did appear to draw upon the situation at the start of his show last night.

Jimmy Carr (Alamy)

According to The Mirror, Carr was heckled during the show by a woman who asked whether they were 'going to talk about the Holocaust', to which he responded: 'We are going to talk about cancel culture, the whole thing. We are going to talk about f*cking everything people. Relax.'

The comedian appeared to waste no time in getting controversial as he opened his show by saying, 'Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Look at that, I've already upset the non-binary community. That has to be a f*cking record.'

He later told the crowd they were speaking 'in the last chance saloon', noting that his comments were 'barely acceptable now', and definitely wouldn't be in 10 years' time.

He continued: 'You are going to be able to tell your grandchildren about seeing this show tonight. You will say I saw a man and he stood on a stage and he made light of serious issues. We used to call them jokes and people would laugh.'

Jimmy Carr (Alamy)

Carr expressed belief that he was 'going to get cancelled', describing that as the 'bad news' while the 'good news' was that he was 'going down swinging'.

He told the crowd the joke that will end his career is 'already out there', suggesting it may be on YouTube or Netflix and that it was considered 'fine until one day it f*cking isn't'.

His comments came after he previously likened cancel culture to 'book burning' in the Channel 4 programme Cancelled, in which he argued that while his shows contain 'jokes about terrible things', they are 'just jokes, they’re not the terrible things'. He also noted that 'shunning' and 'people being thrown out into the wilderness' has always been around, indicating is not something that has come about with the rise of political correctness and greater societal awareness.

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Topics: Film and TV, Life

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.