Almost 40,000 people switched off Tommy Tiernan’s chat show on RTE on Saturday night – as an Irish Muslim leader has come out defending the star over a controversial joke he made during one of his gigs.
Figures released by RTE show an average 419,000 tuned in to watch the Navan funnyman, in comparison to an average 458,000 tuning in to watch his show on Saturday, January 14.
His first episode, airing on January 7, saw 421,000 people tuning in.
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It comes in the wake of a row between RTE star Emer O’Neill and Tommy after Emer was left upset when Tommy told a joke about Dublin Zoo and taxi drivers during one of his gigs in Vicar Street in Dublin.
He later phoned her and publicly apologised. He also removed the joke from his set.
Now, Muslim leader Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri – who appeared as a guest on Tommy's chat show on season two, in January 2018 – has defended Tommy, saying he laughed at Tommy when he asked if he was going to blow up on the show at the time.
"I find it very unfair to #tommytiernan how he is being “cancelled”," Dr Al-Qadri said on Twitter.
He added: "He is an amazing human being and one with a pure soul which is reflected by his apology. He is a stand up comedian and artist."
Dr Al-Qadri said that as he is a comedian, he will "obviously" crack jokes. He highlighted that he personally expected this when he was interviewed by Tommy on his show five years ago.
"Tommy joked if I would blow up after reciting from the Quran. I laughed at it because I was at the #TommyTiernanShow and expected it.
"It's strange that some find it funny when a comedian jokes about other groups (nuns, priests) but do not find it funny when he jokes about them," Dr Al-Qadri stated online.
He stressed that the fact that Tommy Tiernan has apologised is testimony that he has "learnt from this experience."
"Everybody takes jokes differently due to their living experience.
"And those who wouldn’t tolerate jokes about their group should also not tolerate jokes about other groups," the Irish Muslim leader added.
On Friday, Tommy’s representatives issued a statement addressing the stand-up routine, which was read out on Today with Claire Byrne.
“On Friday the 6 of January, Tommy told a joke on stage as part of his stand-up routine,” it said.
“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 said at the time.
But despite the apology from Tommy, the row rumbled on with taxi company Free Now announced it was ending its six-figure sponsorship deal with the chat show over the row.
In a statement, the company said it was "disappointed" by the comments made by Mr Tiernan about taxi drivers and Dublin Zoo.
"Free Now works in close partnership with taxi drivers throughout the country to provide an important transport service for passengers across Ireland.
The FreeNow statement noted that "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."
Emer said that the Navan funnyman could take things one step further by apologising to not only her, but to “the people of Ireland”.
“I’m not going to take that away from him at all because I appreciate him reaching out to me. I think it speaks volumes about the type of person he is,” she said of the email and phone call she received from him.
“But I definitely did say to him that a public statement from him would be so powerful for our community.
“I appreciate that he’s apologised to me. But what about the people of Ireland, our allies, and the people from the ethnic minority community?
“I think they deserve some kind of acknowledgment because I wasn’t the only one that suffered from what ensued with the aftermath of this because a lot of the rhetoric changed from being just a personal attack against me for standing up for what I believe to an attack on our entire community”.
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