Comedian Who Made Anti-Semitic Comment: I Was Intoxicated
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
David Fane, a New Zealand comedian, achieved international notoriety this week after making grossly anti-Semitic remarks on Wednesday at a media event in Auckland. (Making offensive remarks to a room full of media types: not recommended.) He later claimed to have been intoxicated.
According to a report in The New Zealand Herald, Fane, who was on hand to roast some advertising executives at the event, began with, “I want to eat you, but I won’t because I don’t want to get HIV.”
Unwisely, he continued, “Would you roast an HIV person? You’d roast them because they’re expendable, like the Jews. Hitler had a right, you know.”
To the surprise of exactly no one, advocacy groups representing both Jews and people with HIV were outraged.
“They were dumb words said by a dumb man,” Fane later told New Zealand’s 3 News in an apology.
Early reports stating that Fane had resigned as radio host were incorrect; he was temporarily suspended.
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