Comic justifies 'sickening' Kobe Bryant tweet after huge backlash

American comic Ari Shaffir has been forced to offer a lengthy explanation after making a sick joke about the death of Kobe Bryant.

After the basketball hero died in a helicopter crash at the weekend, the comedian tweeted that it had come ’23 years too late’, adding: ‘He got away with rape because all the Hollywood liberals who attack comedy enjoy rooting for the Lakers more than they dislike rape. Big ups to the hero who forgot to gas up his chopper. I hate the Lakers. What a great day.’

After the tweet he was been dropped by his talent agency and had his stand-up gigs cancelled after protestors targeted clubs where he was due to perform.

Though stopping short of apologising, the comic posted a long justification of his comedy on Instagram.

Shaffir’s comment was a reference to a 2003 incident in which a 19-year-old hotel employee accused Bryant of raping her in his room. 

The case was dropped when his accuser refused to Testify in the case. She later filed a separate civil suit which was settled out of court and included Bryant publicly apologising to the woman, without admitting any guilt.

Shaffir’s joke was denounced as ‘sickening’ and ‘disrespectful’ to Bryant and eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, who died in Sunday’s crash.

But following the fierce backlash the 45-year-old comic took to Instagram to explain himself, saying: ‘Every time a beloved celebrity dies I post some horrible shit about them. It’s just a joke. I don’t really hate any of the people.’

Shaffir, a semi-regular visitor to the Edinburgh Fringe, said the joke was only intended for his fans who enjoy his dark humour, and has now protected his Twitter feed so cannot be seen by casual viewers..

The New York Comedy Club cancelled one of the comic’s shows on Tuesday night and said they would never work with him again. The venue said it received threatening phone calls and has filed an aggravated harassment report with police.

Shaffir’s statement in full

’Every time a beloved celebrity dies I post some horrible shit about them. I’ve been doing it for years now. I like destroying gods. And right when a famous person dies they’re at their most worshipped. 

‘So as a response to all the outpouring of sympathy on social media, I post something vile. It’s just a joke. I don’t really hate any of the people. 

‘Some of them I’ve never even heard of and I have to look them up after I see all the RIP posts.  Some of them I actually really admire and I’m bummed they’ve passed. It doesn’t stop me from trying as quickly as I can to write some terrible shit about them. They’re all Just Jokes though. 

‘And I would never tag anyone in them that’s at all associated with the person. I’m not looking to hurt anybody mourning a loved one. Just looking to post some inappropriate jokes for my fans.  They’ve come to expect it from me.

‘A lot of times I’ll suddenly get a bunch of tweets saying "where’s your so and so tweet" about some person I didn’t know had died yet. If I have time I rush to my computer to get something out. Sometimes I’m too busy. Bt sometimes I got the 3-10 minutes I’m willing to take for the project. And then when I post it, most of my followers laugh.

‘Sometimes they ain’t great and I’ll get a lot of "swing and miss" comments. The better they are, the more people like it. Some of them start reposting it and a handful of their followers get angry and the rest of us watch the anger and have a good laugh at the troll.

‘Sunday morning, I started seeing a bunch of people asking me where my Kobe post was. The early reports showed that he had died flying a helicopter that he liked flying. 

‘It didn’t mention anybody else was on board, let alone children. I never made fun of any of the kids on the helicopter. They’re not celebrities. Kids dying like that, it’s horrible. Obviously. All the other people dying, that horrible too. It’s horrible he died. Really really sad. What a terrible thing that was that happened. 

‘But that has nothing to do with why I make these posts. They’re just moronic inappropriate posts I make for the fans who signed up to see them.’ 

‘The only thing I had against Kobe was that he torched my teams over and over again. He made me hate the Lakers with all my heart. nobody came out to comedy shows in LA when he and Shaq were winning titles and nobody came out when he was doing it on his own. I loved saying how much I hated the Lakers. Hating the Lakers was my favorite thing to root for My team was in North Carolina and they fucking sucked. And then they moved to New Orleans and they still fucking sucked. The best they ever did was occasionally get to mediocre. But I could always enjoy a Lakers loss

‘Lately, I loved posting about how bad the Lakers were doing. Razzing their fans when they were going through the recent lean years. It’s been such a fun back and forth with fans online. So they all knew that I would publicly rejoice every time something bad happened to them.

‘With that background and my background of celebrity death posts, I knew I had to come up with something really awful. And that’s what I did. That’s what I always do. If I knew the other people were on that helicopter, I probably wouldn’t have posted anything and I woulda waited for the next celebrity death.’ 

‘But I’m not actually celebrating his death. I’m not actually celebrating any of their deaths. That’s just an act. It’s playing a heel.

‘Ralphie May was a close friend of mine and I even posted one of those about him when he died. He helped me a ton when I was getting started in comedy. Gave me advice. Fed me when I was poor. 

‘And he used to love those posts. So of course I posted one when he died. He woulda been disappointed if I hadn’t.

‘That’s just dark comedy. It ain’t for everybody so I don’t post it for everybody. I post it for my followers who are into that kind of comedy. You’re not supposed to see it if you didn’t sign up for that kind of dark skit.

‘Of course you’d get mad if you saw some random guy celebrating somebody you really liked’s death. It’s not supposed to be presented to you like that. Because that’s not what it is. In reality it’s a comic telling inappropriate jokes to his followers who like inappropriate jokes.’ 

‘Do with that what you want, but that’s what’s happening. I’m sure I’ll post inappropriate stuff about people in the future. Those are the jokes I like. Those are the jokes people who like me like.

‘But that’s what I do. I ain’t actually hurting anyone beyond giving an occasional panic attack to a friend. They are just words. And they’re not ever serious words. They’re jokes for fans.

 ‘RIP Kobe. F*** the Lakers.’ B

Published: 30 Jan 2020