Katherine Ryan has divided fans after defending Jimmy Carr at the National Comedy Awards.
Ryan was accepting the award for Outstanding Female Comedy Entertainment Performance, which she won for an 8 Out of 10 Cats appearance, when she appeared to reference the recent backlash against Carr.
In February, Carr was widely criticised for a joke he made in Netflix comedy special His Dark Material.
The 8 Out of 10 Cats host said in the clip: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.”
Carr added: “No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives.”
As the clip being circulating on social media, several MPs and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust criticised Carr and called upon Netflix to remove the special, with a spokesperson for Boris Johnson condemning the joke.
The spokesperson added that legislation was being pushed through to make streaming services more accountable for potentially dangerous content on their platforms.
During Ryan’s acceptance speech, she thanked Carr and defended his “roast” style of comedy, stating: “That is a genre of comedy that he happens to be best at. I think it is important that we all protect that genre even if people get offended by it.”
The comedian’s comments received huge applause from fellow stars in the crowd.
Viewers were divided over Ryan’s speech at the event, which took place in London on 2 March and was televised on Channel 4 on Saturday (5 March).
“I genuinely feel like I lucid dreamed Katherine Ryan’s speech bc how tf are u gonna have the guts to go on stage in front of everyone and defend a holocaust joke of all things,” one viewer wrote.
Another added: “Catching up on the comedy awards, and while I totally get Katherine Ryan's "thanks to all the men who let me be in their channel 4 shows" joke, doing it in the same breath as defending Jimmy Carr is a bit urrrgh.”
“Has Katherine Ryan just tried to defend Jimmy Carr?” one fan wrote.
There were a contingent of others, though, who praised Ryan for her decision, with one calling it “a proper baller move”.
Another fan said they were “proud” of Ryan for her views.
Elsewhere during the broadcast, Lee Mack shared a story about late comedian Sean Lock from shortly before his death that left viewers “sobbing”.
The National Comedy Awards for Stand Up to Cancer is available to stream on All 4 now.
