The co-creator of Father Ted, Graham Linehan, has wept in a BBC interview where he claimed he was "cancelled" over transphobic comments.
Linehan claimed that trans activists had cost him his family and his marriage before declaring that he had been "thoroughly cancelled".
The Dubliner also said he believes that comedians these days need to keep in line, or face 'cancel culture'.
In an interview with The Nolan Show, the IT Crowd writer said: "They took my family. They took everything from me.
"‘I’m living in a flat now because eventually the pressure of all this drove my wife and I apart and we divorced.
"Before this, all I was doing you know [was] writing comedy and playing board games and being silly on the internet, and then I just said, 'Hang on a sec, stop calling these women terfs, stop sending them abuse, let them speak' and for that they just destroyed me."
Linehan also claimed that his colleagues would not intervene with their own opinions, instead opting to stay out of the discussion.
"My celebrity friends, comedians – you know, intellectuals who have an opinion on everything else under the sun except this subject – this just sit and stay silent," he said.
"And all it needs is just a few adults to step into the room and say, 'Hang on a second. He’s not saying anything particularly controversial. Why is he so toxic?'"
"Every comedian at the moment is living under a kind of state of permanent blackmail...there's a few hot-button issues where you have to follow a certain line and if you don't, you'll be destroyed."
Linehan added that his stage musical version of Father Ted axed just as it was in rehearsals.
Linehan was permanently suspended from Twitter in 2020 for “repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation”.
The suspension came after Linehan responded to a Women’s Institute post wishing a happy pride to all of their transgender members with: “Men aren’t women tho.”
After creating a new account under the guise of a trans man, Linehan was again suspended.
Then, last year, Linehan created a fake account on the lesbian dating app Her and publicly posted screenshots from the app of users which were non-binary and trans women to his blog, stating that they should not be allowed on the app because they “are not lesbians”.
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