Taxi company FreeNow have pulled out of a sponsorship deal with RTE after Tommy Tiernan told a controversial joke about taxi drivers.
The comedian told the joke at a recent Vicar Street gig, which was attended by RTE presenter Emer O'Neill. She was so upset after hearing it, she ended up walking out of the gig with her friends.
The joke, which was about taxi drivers at Dublin Zoo, has now prompted FreeNow to now pull its six-figure sponsorship of The Tommy Tiernan Show, the Irish Independent reports.
READ MORE: Tommy Tiernan breaks silence over controversial joke as he makes public apology
The taxi company said that they were "disappointed" with the comments and that prejudice towards taxi drivers is "unacceptable".
In a statement to the Sunday Independent a FreeNow spokesperson, said: “As a recent sponsor of The Tommy Tiernan Show on RTÉ, we were disappointed about the comments made at his Vicar Street gig regarding taxi drivers.
“Free Now works in close partnership with taxi drivers throughout the country to provide an important transport service for passengers across Ireland.
“Prejudice of any kind towards taxi drivers is unacceptable. We decided to conclude our sponsorship of the show last week but will continue to work with RTÉ on other projects going forward.”
A spokesperson for RTE confirmed that Free Now has ended its sponsorship of the Tommy Tiernan Show on RTE One, adding: "We look forward to working with Free Now again in the future."
Emer O'Neill told the Irish Mirror last week her “heart sank” as he began telling the audience a joke about Dublin Zoo and taxi drivers, forcing the Today Show host to walk out of the Vicar Street gig.
Emer told us at the time: “He starts the joke, and he starts talking about penguins looking like nuns with the rosary beads and I thought ‘nice one’ and I’m laughing.
“Then he talks about the wolves and their fierceness or their strength (reminding him of the Irish) - this is all paraphrasing because this just happened – and then he goes ‘then I went to the ‘African Savannah’ and my heart sank a little bit as soon as I heard the word ‘Africa’.
“I just thought ‘please don’t do this to me. I’m literally one of the only people of colour sitting here full of a room of white people’.
“And then came the savannah and taxi drivers. He acknowledged that the room was full of white people” and said that everyone is laughing so it mustn't be a racist joke.”
The RTE presenter told us how she had received an apology from Tiernan last week via email and on the phone - and the comedian has since made a public apology addressing the furore.
The statement from Tommy Tiernan read: “On Friday the 6 th of January, Tommy told a joke on stage as part of his stand-up routine.
“As soon as he received a complaint, he spoke to that audience member to understand where he went wrong.
"He immediately removed the joke from the set and apologised both personally by phone and email and publicly by addressing it on stage the following night and every night since reiterating his apology.
“Tommy does not condone any negative online comments received by this audience member and most definitely not in his defence.”
The statement was read out by host Claire Byrne on her RTE Radio 1 show while Emer was also in studio on Friday.
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