As one of the nation’s most outspoken comedians, being politically correct is a trait that has never featured in Ricky Gervais‘ repertoire.
Never one to pander to the idea of being ‘cancelled’, the comedian, 63, has previously ruffled feathers with his behaviour both on and off-stage, with some names sharing their less-than favourable experiences working with him.
On Wednesday, fellow comedian Robin Ince shared that his experience touring with Ricky had a physical impact on his health, accusing him of bullying him and added that constant digs leading him to break out in a rash.
He said that despite this, they remained friends for many years, until he publicly criticised Ricky for comments made about the transgender community in 2022.
Since rising to fame as a star and co-creator of The Office, Ricky has paired his critically-acclaimed roles with multiples jokes taking aim at the ‘woke brigade,’ and severing topics including trans rights, identity politics and cancel culture.
As one of the nation’s most outspoken comedians, being politically correct is a trait that has never featured in Ricky Gervais’ biography
Managing to brush off any backlash around his comments, Ricky previously said that he was keen to push boundaries as far as he can with his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy, when he appeared in his 2023 stand-up special Armageddon.
Ricky has also topped up his fortune in recent years by signing a lucrative exclusive deal with streaming giant Netflix, who aired his latest comedy series After Life.
His sold-out standup gigs, his latest called Mortality, are also linked with the streamer, and this year, royalties from hit BBC comedy The Office will be further boosted due to the release of a new US reboot.
takes a look at the various names that have been less complimentary about their experiences with Ricky…
Leaving his tour partner with a rash and hair loss
Fellow comedian Robin Ince has claimed that Ricky’s backstage jeers at him took a physical toll on his health when they toured together
Speaking on The Starting Line podcast, Ince claimed that Gervais’s ‘bullying’ became so bad his co-star in The Office, Mackenzie Crook, stepped in and confronted him about it
In a resurfaced clip, Robin appeared visibly downcast when hearing Ricky’s famous laugh, while undergoing an EEG recording at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability
Fellow comedian Robin Ince has claimed that Ricky’s backstage jeers at him took a physical toll on his health when they toured together.
‘I look back now, and I think it is bullying, really it is,’ Ince claimed. ‘I’m very good at sometimes just acclimatising to things, in which you go, ’actually, this is really weird’.
‘But people who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked. I am not saying it is a traumatic experience, but after two weeks I came out in red lumps that my doctor said were a stress rash. I think my hair is coming out in clumps.’
Speaking on The Starting Line podcast, Ince claimed that Gervais’s ‘bullying’ became so bad his co-star in The Office, Mackenzie Crook, stepped in and confronted him about it.
Robin announced his retirement in 2015, saying he was ‘starting to go mad’ with self-doubt, insomnia and regret over not spending enough time with his family, but returned to the venture a year later.
Currently, he hosts the BBC Radio 4 show The Infinite Monkey Cage alongside Brian Cox, and he also co-created the Christmas stage show Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People.
Robin remained friends with Gervais, 63, until 2022 when he wrote a blog post criticising him for making jokes about transgender people in his Netflix comedy special SuperNature.
‘It is easy to forget the collateral damage of jokes,’ Ince said.
‘Anti-trans punchlines seem to have become highly profitable and it ignores the dehumanising effect on a swathe of already marginalised people,’ he wrote, adding: ‘I think Ricky believes it is just him being a ”naughty boy”. I believe it makes him a pin-up and role model for the alt-Right.’
In 2014, Robin also underwent an EEG recording at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, showing how his brain reacted to various audio stimuli.
In a resurfaced clip, Robin appeared visibly downcast when hearing Ricky’s famous laugh, with on-screen text saying it sparked ‘avoidance, anxiety and low mood.’
Being confronted by his producer over ‘uncomfortable’ jibes
While at the helm of The Office, producer Ash Atalla (pictured centre) admitted Ricky’s repeated jokes about disability made him feel ‘a little bit uncomfortable’
While accepting a prize for The Office at the British Comedy Awards in 2001, Gervais joked that Atalla, who uses a wheelchair, was the show’s runner
While at the helm of BBC’s critically-acclaimed comedy The Office, producer Ash Atalla admitted Ricky’s repeated jokes about disability made him feel ‘a little bit uncomfortable.’
While accepting a prize for The Office at the British Comedy Awards in 2001, Gervais joked that Atalla, who uses a wheelchair, was the show’s runner.
He also referred to Atalla as ‘my little wheelchair friend’ and quipped that he was ‘just the same as Stephen Hawking, but without all the clever stuff.’
In a 2021 interview with The Times, Ash said that he ‘wasn’t bothered’ by Ricky’s comments at the time, but feels different many years later.
He said: ‘I felt a little bit uncomfortable. There was a period of late Nineties comedy with the likes of Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle where the game was – see what you could get away with and then reverse intellectualise it.
‘Those jokes didn’t bother me at the time, but they would if they happened now. I wouldn’t allow so many jokes to be made about my wheelchair, I wouldn’t want to be defined by that.’
Clashing with James Acaster
Ricky had sparked huge backlash when his stand-up special Armageddon was released on Christmas Day, featuring controversial jokes about asylum seekers and terminally ill children
It was Ricky’s jibes at the transgender community that James took aim at in a resurfaced sketch from his 2019 stand-up special, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999
Just last year, stand-up comic James Acaster sparked a social media frenzy when a sketch ripping into Ricky Gervais resurfaced.
Ricky had sparked huge backlash when his stand-up special Armageddon was released on Christmas Day, featuring controversial jokes about asylum seekers and terminally ill children.
Meanwhile jokes in Ricky’s 2022 Netflix special SuperNature saw him joke about transgender people, Adolf Hitler and AIDS in his 2022 Netflix special SuperNature.
His words were described as ‘dangerous’ material by an American LGBT rights group, while Stonewall accused him of ‘making fun of trans people’.
The show saw him talk to the audience about cancel culture and the transgender issues saying: ‘Ah women. Not all women, I mean the old-fashioned women, you know the ones with wombs? Those f***ing dinosaurs.
‘I love the new women. They’re great, aren’t they? The new ones we’ve been seeing lately. The ones with beards and c***s. They’re as good as gold, I love them.
‘And now the old-fashioned ones say ‘oh, they want to use our toilets’. Why shouldn’t they use your toilets? For ladies! They are ladies — look at their pronouns!’
Acting out a discussion, he adds: ‘What about this person isn’t a lady? ‘Well, his penis.’ Her penis, you f***ing bigot! ‘What if he rapes me?’ What if she rapes you, you f***ing TERF w***e?’
It was Ricky’s jibes at the transgender community that James took aim at in a resurfaced sketch from his 2019 stand-up special, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999.
In it, the Off Menu podcast host said: ‘Most edgy comics look like me, race and gender-wise, they say whatever they like. Edgy comedians, no one tells them what they can and can’t say.
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‘They walk straight on stage, top of their specials sometimes, do 10 solid minutes of slagging off transgender people. Straight out the gate, just making fun of transgender people.
‘If people on the internet get upset about it, the comedian’s always like, ‘Bad luck! That’s my job. I’m a stand-up comedian, I’m meant to challenge people. If you don’t like being challenged, don’t watch my shows. What’s the matter guys, too challenging for you?’
Repeating the sentiments several times, James continued: ‘Oh yeah, because you know who’s long been overdue a challenge? The trans community!
‘Oh, they’ve had their guard down for too long, if you ask me. They’ll be checking their privilege on the way home now thanks to you, you brave little cis boy!’
Saying he ‘used to name one of the comedians’ who that routine was about, Acaster revealed it would then ‘get awkward in the room’.
He then said: ‘Apparently, it’s 2019, most people are still more than happy to laugh at transgender people, not happy to laugh at Ricky Gervais yet, I’ve discovered. That’s the line.’
The clip was reposted by a string of fans who were quick to praise James for the ‘brilliant and spot-on’ joke.
Backlash from disability groups over ‘m**g’ jokes
Back in 2011, Ricky received criticism from disability groups for repeated use of the word ‘m**g’ on his Twitter feed.
The comedian’s tweets had included phrases such ‘Good m***ing everyone’, ‘Night night m**glets’ and ‘Two m**gs don’t make a right’.
Disability charity Mencap called Ricky’s tweets ‘very disappointing,’ with campaigns and policy officer Mark Gale saying: ‘When people in the public eye use words of this type [it] can be offensive to people with a disability and their families.
‘We want people to know that such language can perpetuate discriminatory attitudes towards disabled people.’
Down Syndrome Education International also said it was concerned and claimed many people would find it just as bad as offensive language related to race or sexual orientation.
Ricky later claimed he had been ‘naïve’ to use the word without realising that it was still used to insult the disabled.
A never-ending feud with James Corden
One of TV’s longest-running rows has been between Ricky and James Corden, with the pair regularly firing shots at one another
In 2022, Corden was accused of ripping off one of Ricky’s jokes during a monologue about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover
One of TV’s longest-running rows has been between Ricky and Gavin and Stacey star James Corden, with the pair regularly firing shots at one another, though both have insisted it’s all in the name of good humour.
In 2022, Corden was accused of ripping off one of Ricky’s jokes during a monologue about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
Ricky tweeted a clip of James saying the gag: ‘When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter he does this thing where he goes, ”Well, it’s the town square”.
‘But it doesn’t. If someone puts up a poster in a town square that says ‘guitar lessons available’, like you don’t get people in the town going, ”I don’t want to play guitar! I want to play the piano you piece of s**t!”
‘Well that sign wasn’t for you. It was for somebody else! You don’t have to get mad about all of it.’
Soon after James said it, Ricky had drawn attention to the similarities with a sarcastic tweet, but he later deleted it, and later explained that he did that because ‘he started feeling sorry for’ Corden over the backlash.
Asked if Corden had directly contacted him, Ricky told the Headliners podcast, said: ‘He did. I said ‘Don’t worry about it’, I said ‘if your writers were in the back of the room when I was warming up and you got it out there before I did it on Netflix…’, but whatever you think of James Corden there is no way he knowingly ripped off my joke and thought he’d get away with it.’
Asked if he regretted reacting to it, Ricky added: ‘No, because I’m allowed. I didn’t how it had happened. And I thought it was funny. I thought it was absurd that it was such an obvious rip-off.
‘But again I don’t know how he got to it because the writer must have walked him through and said ‘Do this and do that’. Or he saw it five years ago and completely forgot about it and thought he’d made it up. That can happen as well.
‘There are some plagiarists but a lot of it is genuinely accidental. So that is clearly my routine but I don’t think he came up with it at all. I think a writer pitched that to him and didn’t tell him it was mine, or the writer forgot.’
Giving the host the benefit of the doubt, Ricky added: ‘I don’t know. I want to be fair. But what I don’t believe is James Corden watched that and thought ‘I can just rip that off’. There’s just no way.’
‘There is no way James Corden watched that and thought ‘I can get away with this’. It was the biggest special of the year. There is no way he thought ‘I can rip him off’.
‘He was horrified. No chance,’ concluded Ricky.
In his Armageddon stand-up special, Ricky then took another swipe at James, while discussing a website which was founded to allow viewers to search whether a dog or cat had died in a certain film or TV show
He said: ‘This website was founded in 2010, so it’s run about 13 years and the later questions start reflecting the times we live in now and they get more and more fragile and narcissistic.
‘These questions were asked this year, check it out, Schindler’s List, someone says, ‘Are there any fat jokes?’ Would that make this worse?’
‘Someone asks, ”Is there hate speech?” Yeah… suck it up buttercup,’ before going onto read out questions of whether ‘someone is misgendered’ or whether there is ‘any antisemitism’ in the film or if it has a ‘sad ending’.
He then added: ‘I asked one question myself on this, is James Corden in it?’