Jimmy Carr defends Holocaust joke at recent stand-up gig

Last week a joke from his latest Netflix special, His Dark Material, circulated on social media, in which he uses the death of Gypsy people during the Holocaust as a punchline.

Criticism came in from social media, including from comedian David Baddiel and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.

Anti-hate groups such as the not-for-profit organisation Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and The Auschwitz Memorial also condemned the comedian for the joke.

I said this every night during my Trolls: Not The Dolls tour as part of a bit arguing that it's not the subject matter of a joke that counts, it's the specifics of the individual joke. Clearly, Jimmy Carr's was the former. pic.twitter.com/xI4yWt9U0T

— David Baddiel (@Baddiel) February 5, 2022

How did Jimmy Carr respond to the criticism?

As reported by The Mirror, Carr responded to this criticism at a weekend gig in Whitley Bay in Tyne and Wear, when an audience member heckled if he was going to talk about the Holocaust.

In response, he reportedly said: "We are going to talk about cancel culture, the whole thing.

"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****** forget about it."

READ MORE: Jimmy Carr's 'truly disturbing' holocaust joke in Netflix special

"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 is already out there. It's on YouTube, Netflix or whatever, and it's fine until one day it f****** isn't," he added.

Carr was reported to go on to say: "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."