Daniel Tosh isn’t usually one to shy away from controversial material during his stand-up routines, but one audience member felt the comedian went a little too far during one of his recent performances.
Tosh, who hosts the hit Comedy Central series “Tosh.0,” was called out for making inappropriate comments during a recent gig.
A female audience member took to a friend’s Tumblr page Tuesday to explain what happened when she caught his performance at the Hollywood Laugh Factory.
“Tosh (started) making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious,” she claims.
The audience member wrote that she felt “provoked” and subsequently yelled out to Tosh, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
“After I call out to him, Tosh paused for a moment,” she continued. “Then, he says, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…'”
The girl was so taken aback by Tosh’s comments, that she promptly left the show and asked a manager at the venue for her money back.
Comedy club owner Jamie Masada, who was present for the show, told Buzzfeed that the woman’s description of the incident isn’t accurate.
Tosh came on stage and asked the audience what they wanted to talk about, Masada told the site.
An audience member yelled out “rape,” and a woman in the audience screamed “No, rape is painful, don’t talk about it.”
Masada said Tosh replied “well it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys – something like that,” before adding that he didn’t hear the exchange properly.
“It was a comment,” Masada said, “it wasn’t a joke at the expense of this girl.”
Never one to typically apologize for his jokes, Tosh felt it appropriate to issue a public apology via Twitter in this situation.
“all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize,” he wrote Tuesday, linking to the blog post.
“the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them,” he continued.
In a bid to ease the tension surrounding his recent jokes, the comedian added: “On a lighter note tonight’s new episode of tosh.0 will be featuring clowns…insane ones.”
The woman sat through the entire show – which received a standing ovation – and complained only at the end, Masada told the site. She accepted comp tickets for a future show.
Masada added, “If you don’t want to get insulted don’t go to comedy clubs.”
