Fresh Battle Breaks Out With Frankie Boyle Slamming Ricky Gervais For “Self-Identifying As Stand-Up”

Caroline Frost
·2 min read
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The seas have divided once again on social media this weekend in the UK, with two armies lining up behind their favourite controversial comedians, Frankie Boyle and Ricky Gervais.

Following Gervais’s latest stand-up special Armageddon landing on Netflix on Christmas Day, BBC Scotland aired a clip of Boyle in action in 2020 when his turn included an epic take-down of his comedic contemporary.

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Gervais’s new special includes some jokes about those who self-identify as men or women, prompting Boyle’s fans to recirculate the Scottish comedian taking issue with this thus…

He told the live audience: “Ricky Gervais does maybe 15 minutes where he says, ‘Well if a trans woman can say she’s a woman, I can say that I’m a chimpanzee. I’m a chimpanzee.’

“My reaction to that is, it’s not much weirder than Ricky Gervais saying he’s a stand-up comedian.

“We know Ricky Gervais, he’s a brilliant actor, he’s a brilliant writer, he’s not a f***ing stand-up comedian. Just because RG self-identifies as a stand-up comedian, am I supposed to say that he is one? It’s f***ing political correctness gone mad.”

He went on:

“I watched the whole of Ricky Gervais’s show. I feel like Fred Astaire watching a man in callipers fall down a f***ing escalator.”

Both men have caused ripples with their humour in their time, with many on social media freshly taking Boyle to task for his hypocrisy, while others pointed out that Boyle punches up, while Gervais punches down.

Back in December 2020, Boyle took Gervais on over the same subject, saying an interview: “I saw his routine about trans people, and I thought it was very lazy.”

At the time, Gervais responded on X (formerly known as Twitter) where he posted: “I look down on everyone equally.”

Watch this space.

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