Jack Dee defends Jimmy Carr over Holocaust joke and brands backlash ‘a storm out of very little’

Jack Dee has backed Jimmy Carr after his fellow comedian was met with fierce backlash over a joke about the travelling community being killed during the Holocaust.

The 60-year-old star defended Jimmy after the comment made during the latter’s His Dark Material Netflix special as many people – including Prime Minister Boris Johnson – condemned his joke, with some calling for a police investigation.

During the live show, the comedian had joked that ‘thousands of gypsies killed by the Nazis’ was a ‘positive’ aspect of the Holocaust.

Speaking on Monday’s episode of Good Morning Britain, Jack said: ‘These things come round and they go. Jimmy set it up as an unacceptable thing to say. A month later someone got hold of it and tried to make a storm out of very little.

‘Do we want the state to intervene on what can be said or not said? I think we don’t want that. I think we’re sophisticated enough as an audience to discern what we want without calling the cops.’

Jack insisted he has first-hand experience of this situation, as he was once warned if he told a certain joke, he’d never work on television again – but he decided to tell it anyway.

Jimmy Carr has been hit with fierce backlash (Picture: Matt Frost)

Jack Dee defended his fellow comedian (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

He explained: ‘The Radio 4 audiences love that stuff, they’re not very offendable. I am probably one of the more risqué programmes that’s allowed to be out there.

‘I say what I want to say and that’s good. A live show is the right arena to do that stuff because the audience can immediately tell you if they like it or not. I’m not out there to shock anyone but I’m also not going to cotton wool what I say.

‘There was a joke I was told I mustn’t say and I ended up telling the joke anyway and was told I’d never work in television again but promises, promises, never happened.’ 

Jimmy’s joke was branded ‘truly disturbing’ and ‘beyond tasteless’.

Ahead of his show, the 8 Out Of 10 Cats host had issued a ‘trigger warning’ saying that it included ‘terrible things’.

More: Netflix

In the joke, Jimmy said: ‘When people talk about the Holocaust they talk about the tragedy of six million lives being lost to the Nazi war machine, but they never mention the thousands of Gypsies killed by the Nazis, because no one wants to talk about the positives.’

Jimmy’s comments have been widely condemned by groups such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Auschwitz Memorial, and Hope Not Hate.

Downing Street has also said that the comments Carr made were ‘deeply disturbing’.

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.

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