Comedians are in the game of making fun out of the things – and the people – they encounter.
But Canadian-American comic, Samantha Bee has recently been embroiled in a scandal over a misguided joke which poked fun at a young man’s hair.
On Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, the comedian introduced a photograph depicting a group of men at a Conservative Political Action Conference.
Producer, Mike Rubens was quick to poke fun at one man’s appearance, saying he had a ‘Nazi haircut’.
The young man who became the butt of this exaggerated and cruel joke is Kyle Coddington, who quickly tweeted the show t ask them to remove the photograph of him.
He wrote, ‘Also, it’s not a Nazi haircut. Richard Spencer’s is, but mine’s from cancer.’
Kyle’s sister, Megan Coddington also criticised Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, before clarifying Kyle actually has Stage 4 brain cancer. Kyle has been diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable glioblastoma.
Upon learning this, Bee apologised, removed the segment from the show and took the clip down from YouTube.
The show proceeded to donate $1,000 to Coddington’s GoFundMe page which is raising money to pay for the young man’s medical bills.
Unsurprisingly, the apology was not enough for Kyle who released a full statement criticising the programme for profiling him against his will and inaccurately.
Kyle, a registered Democrat, wrote:
I want to make it clear that half-apologising for offending someone is not apologising for making baseless accusations against people because of the way they look.
This kind of behaviour should be rejected by both sides of the aisle.
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs on TBS, which is owned by Time Warner, CNN’s parent company.
You can read Kyle’s story online and donate to his GoFundMe page.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.