Comedy agent Kitty Laing demoted in antisemitic tweet row

But she will continue to represent her acts

Leading comedy agent Kitty Laing is to lose her senior roles after retweeting incendiary posts about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

However she will continue working with her clients, who include Katherine Ryan, Nick Mohammed and Jamie Demetriou, it has been announced.

She will leave her role as United Agents’ head of comedy and as a member of its executive committee after amplifying messages that were widely seen as antisemitic.

A spokesperson for the agency told the entertainment trade press: ‘Following the statements made earlier this week, it has been agreed that Kitty Laing will step away from her leadership roles as head of comedy and as a member of the executive committee of United Agents, effective immediately.

‘Kitty will continue to work with her clients and the team at United Agents.’

The decision comes two days after the company promised a ‘full and thorough investigation’ into her social media activity.

Messages she reposted included one referring to victims of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities as ‘fake beheaded babies’ and another suggesting Israelis should not be called civilians but ‘settler paramilitaries’.

When the nature of the comments were highlighted by Jewish comedians, she posted: ‘I would like to unreservedly apologise for my retweets on social media surrounding the horrendous attacks in Israel on October 7th.

‘With hindsight, I realise how naive I have been and that much of the information on social media surrounding the conflict is unsubstantiated and hurtful. I should have taken time to consider this beforehand.’’

However she subsequently deleted all her social media accounts..

Among her most prominent critics was Jewish comic Josh Howie, who said her posts – and the industry’s slowness in condemning them - showed ‘how deep the Jewhate has set’.

And Lee Kern said Laing ‘has been on a wicked spree sharing hateful crap promoting mockery of Jews murdered in terror attacks & conspiracies that currently Islamists & neo-Nazis are spreading online’.

He added that she displayed a ‘spite and contempt’ for the Jewish people, saying she was ‘disgraceful’ and ‘the worst kind of person in this war: so hate-filled & ignorant that dead Jewish kids becomes a laugh’.

He concluded: ‘The acts Kitty represents aren’t responsible for her actions, but I pity them for her being responsible for their careers. Finally @kittylaing at @UnitedAgents is a major agent at a major talent agency known & followed by countless people in the industry. This stuff has been on her page for days & no one has said anything. They are either cowards or worse.’

However, some Twitter users sprang to Laing’s defence on X, saying her agents were ‘censoring’ her by ‘bowing to the cancel culture mob’ as ‘people have a right to speak about occupation’.

Kitty Laing has deleted her account. That she could proudly post this kind of bile about ‘fake beheaded babies’, our brutally murdered children, to the entire entertainment industry and receive absolutely no pushback until now, tells you how deep the Jewhate has set. https://t.co/0jPK5700XY pic.twitter.com/6Ex3mkQ07W
— Josh Howie (@joshxhowie) October 23, 2023

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Published: 26 Oct 2023