Every now and then the press has a field day, screaming for Jimmy’s head because of a joke he’s told that, while perfectly acceptable to his audience, will take on a whole new life form when ripped out of context and printed as a headline.

This type of article never quite dies off and every now and then someone will write about all the times he’s offended someone – but only offer up one side of the story (depending on their target audience). Plus, the AI chatbots have probably only taken note of the articles with the most views – meaning the hysterical content is now set in stone.

For details of Jimmy’s support of the military (in both the UK and US) see here.

So, here’s my round up of what happened…

In 2009, during his Rapier Wit tour, Jimmy told a joke about the Paralympics, that he had written after a visit (in March) to Headley Court Rehabilitation Centre).

Say what you like about these servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a ******* good paralympic team in 2012

On this occasion someone had picked up on it during a gig in a sold-out Manchester Apollo and taken offence on behalf of the troops (I say on behalf of because it wasn’t actually the squaddies that were complaining). Off we go with the pearl clutching and “ban this filth” brigade.

The Daily Mail led the charge (October 2009) – declaring “Families’ anger at Jimmy Carr’s disgraceful joke…”. Well, that’s what happens when reporters contact the parents of wounded veterans (people who are unlikely to like dark humour anyway and just get a joke read out to them over breakfast).

The Mail goes on to say that:

The joke was even more surprising given that Carr has visited seriously injured troops at Selly Oak military hospital in Birmingham and the Headley Court rehabilitation centre near Epsom, Surrey.

Doesn’t that actually make it LESS surprising? He’d spent time with wounded soldiers (as they showed in an image in the article) on multiple visits. And these weren’t visits meant to bolster his “brand” because he kept them quiet.

People that are in hazardous jobs (services, police, fire etc.) frequently share his dark sense of humour as a way of coping with what they see on a daily basis. And he would know this both from these visits and from chatting with his audience after gigs.

As ever – the media whipped up soundbites from MPs and such like calling for his career to be over. It appears “cancel culture” was gathering speed back in 2009, when we had Frankie Boyle quitting Mock The Week (after being rapped on the knuckles for jokes about Rebecca Adlington and The Queen) and, the year before, Ross and Brand were in trouble for “Sachsgate”.

As some of the articles below pointed out – the press realised that outrage over something a comedian has said plays well with their readers.

Back to the joke. The Guardian (surprisingly) actually took Jimmy’s side and wished he hadn’t apologised and points out that online forums suggest that the troops themselves were not offended and had heard / told worse jokes. The article lists several recent clickbait comic controversies (by other comedians) and rightly points out that the more controversial guys are actually the ones selling out huge venues.

A rather good blog post here makes the point that, in Aug 2009, the MOD asked a soldier to repay the money he had been paid for losing a leg – and perhaps there should be outrage about THAT instead. Especially as the leg was only valued at £48,000.

Dominic Lawson in the Independent (worth a read) also was supportive of the joke, having read online forums and noticed how suspiciously similar all the text was in the many press articles and said:

A friend of mine, whose son is now serving in Afghanistan, tells me that the black humour starts when the injured soldier is being pulled from the wreckage of some bomb blast and his rescuer says, “Can I have your watch, mate?”.

Jimmy gave a brief interview to BBC Newsbeat and pointed out that radio stations and press were phoning people that had lost loved ones in a war and reading out the joke to them and that he’d “had a huge amount of support from guys in the armed forces”.

The Guardian then did a follow up interview with him (in the interval of a gig in Margate) where he admitted that the fallout from the whipped-up furore had been stressful. Even the Prime Minister’s office had got involved (the PM in 2009 would have been Gordon Brown).

Jim Davidson was supportive – despite them previously having a falling out over ownership of a joke:

Jimmy Carr was one of the first to visit the Headley Court Rehabilitation Centre and I have just done a show with him at Selly Oak [another such centre]. He asks no fee and no publicity – that’s a lot more to be said than for some.

By July 2012 the BBC ran a headline “Was Jimmy Carr right about the Paralympics?” – highlighting how many medals had been won by service people.

And, in a 2021 Guardian article, promoting Jimmy’s book Before and Laughter, Jimmy and the interviewer touch on the controversy around this joke:

He recalls being at the GQ awards two or three years later; Seb Coe was onstage with a group of Paralympians. “He talked about how incredible they were at 2012, and said: ‘Obviously the cause of a lot of their injuries were military service.’” I was sitting next to Michael McIntyre and he turned to me and said: ‘He’s doing your bit!’

I’ve got a couple of these “joke controversies” lined up to witter on about – and they tend to follow the same pattern. There can be a room full of thousands of people and if ONE person decides to take offence – that’s good enough for a witch hunt. As Jimmy and other comedians have pointed out – that one person may have spent a couple of hours laughing along at jokes at the expense of other groups – but then get triggered by something relating to something they hold dear.

The tabloids start it off and the Daily Mail is often the first (and worst) because it’s readership seemingly HATES Jimmy (read the comments under any story that they write about him). It’s guaranteed clickbait for the Mail.

Reporters call around, fishing for quotes, and we will never know whether they only printed the negative ones and binned the others. If Politicians think speaking about it will play well with their constituents – they will joyfully supply a soundbite. Other MSM outlets then repeat the story, often just copy/pasting the same text.

In this interview (Christian O’Connell Show) Jimmy mentions how awful HE felt about reporters phoning up the parents of injured service people.

Eventually you get some common-sense filtering through, in more thoughtful editorials, but they never quite get the same traction as the original OUTRAGE!!! pieces.

There we have it. The people the joke referred to found it funny and the outrage came from people that either don’t like Jimmy or his humour (or both). Or from politicians, sniffing out votes.

We perhaps need to remember that the comedian wasn’t the one sending soldiers off to war on very flimsy evidence (see Blair and the WMD) and then quibbling over the paltry amounts of compensation they were due… Just a thought.