Jimmy Carr breaks silence over ‘career-ending’ holocaust joke as he’s slammed by celebs
JIMMY Carr has broken his silence after facing a huge backlash over a joke about the genocide of gypsies in the holocaust.
Taking to the stage last night for a stand-up show at the Whitley Bay Playhouse, Jimmy told the audience "the joke that ends my career is already out there."
Jimmy replied: "We are going to talk about cancel culture, the whole thing.
"We are going to talk about f***ing everything people. Relax."
After joking about offending the LGBT community, Jimmy said: "We are speaking my friends in the last chance saloon.
"What I am saying on stage this evening is barely acceptable now. In ten years f***ing forget about it.
"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."
The funnyman then said he wasn't going to go down with a whimper amid calls for him to be de-platformed and even investigated by police.
Celebrity Big Brother and My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding star Paddy Doherty said: “He should be investigated by the police.
“That wasn’t a joke. He’s talking about mass murder being a positive – would he be allowed to say this about black people killed by the Ku Klux Klan?
“There’s a level you don’t go to. More than a million of my people were killed.”
While Jimmy's close friend and fellow comedian David Baddiel said the gag was "cruel and inhumane and mean-spirited and racist" in a Twitter thread.
He added: "As a footnote, I'd add that Jimmy is a close friend of mine and a brilliant stand-up in general. Makes no difference to how I feel or think about this specific joke."
Going on the offensive at his show last night, Jimmy said: "I am going to get cancelled, that's the bad news. The good news is I am going down swinging.
"The joke that ends my career it's already out there. It's on YouTube, Netflix, or whatever, and it's fine until one day it f***ing isn't."
Hope Not Hate, the anti-fascism and anti-racism campaigning group, also condemned the comedian's joke on Friday.
In a tweet, they said: "Comedy is an amazing tool for progressive change and it's such a shame that Jimmy Carr decided to use his platform to celebrate the murder of one of the most marginalised groups in society."
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The Auschwitz Memorial called for him to "learn about the fate of some 23,000 Roma and Sinti deported to Auschwitz" in a tweet to their 1.2million followers.