Apology to Paul Sinha

Jim Davidson has apologised to fellow comic Paul Sinha, who he once referred to as ‘‘the Indian poof’.

Their 2010 encounter at the Comedy Store has since become a staple of Sinha’s stand-up routine. In it, he describes how the older comic came to a Cutting Edge night at the London venue, and they chatted amicably at the bar afterwards – perhaps surprisingly.

But Sinha was shocked to see Davidson’s write-up of the night on his blog, in which he made the dismissive comment about Sinha and called all the comics on the bill ‘an awful, jealous, socialist bunch of c*nts’.

However, the five-times married 58-year old now seems to have had a change of heart – thanks to Sinha’s regular appearances on ITV1 quiz show The Chaser.

Writing again on his blog, Davidson admitted: ‘The first time we met we didn’t exactly hit it off. (my fault)

‘However he is brilliant and without doubt the best Chaser by far. I wish I could put the clock back and meet him again without putting my bloody foot in it like I always do.

‘I am sorry Paul,  I got you so wrong. I seem to not like people at first and then realise what a tit I’m being.

‘Stephan [sic] Fry is positively charming. Johnathan Ross is as funny as hell (steady) I can’t wait to meet Frankie Boyle and prove myself wrong again… must be getting old.’

Sinha accepted the apology, telling Chortle: 'Jim's sincere apology means that we can both put this rather tawdry affair to bed. I was never annoyed that he had "slagged me off", only that he had misrepresented what I remembered to be a friendly encounter.

'But I have no complaints, I got an Edinburgh show out of it, and at my age real life rarely offers that level of creative inspiration.'

Sinha has been keen to point out Davidson’s error in calling him an ‘Indian poof’ – insisting in his act that he is a ‘British-Asian poof’.

After the apology, Richard Herring commented on Twitter: 'If only more gay and/or Asian people were good at quizzes then maybe racism and homophobia would be eradicated.'

Published: 20 Nov 2012