Nearly 40,000 people opted out of Tommy Tiernan’s chat show on RTE on Saturday night, as an Irish Muslim leader defended the star over a controversial joke he made during one of his performances.
Figures released by RTE show an average of 419,000 people tuned in to see Navan Funnyman, compared with an average of 458,000 who watched his show on Saturday 14 January.
Its first episode, which aired on January 7, saw 421,000 viewers.
It comes after a row between RTE star Emer O’Neill and Tommy, after Emer was upset when Tommy told a joke about Dublin Zoo and taxi drivers during one of his performances on Dublin’s Vicar Street.
Now Muslim leader Shaykh Dr. Umar Al-Qadriāwho starred on Tommy’s talk show during season two in January 2018ādefended Tommy, saying he laughed at Tommy when he asked if he would blow up in air the show at that time.
“I find it very unfair to #tommytiernan how he is being ācancelledā. 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 on Twitter, reports The Mirror.
On Friday, Tommy’s reps released a statement about the stand-up routine that was read on Today with Claire Byrne.
āOn Friday the 6 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,ā the statement said at the time,ā it said, reports The Mirror.
But despite Tommy’s apology, the row continued when cab company Free Now announced it was ending its six-figure endorsement deal with the above-the-line chat show.
In a statement, the company said it was “disappointed” by Tiernan’s comments about taxi drivers and Dublin Zoo.
āFree Now works in close partnership with taxi drivers throughout the country to provide an important transport service for passengers across Ireland,” reports The Mirror.
Emer said Navan’s funnyman could take it a step further by not only apologizing to her but also to “the people of Ireland.”
“Iām 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,ā 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 heās 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 wasnāt 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 communityā, he said, reports The Mirror.
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