The comedian Amy Schumer has tweeted, “I have never and would never steal a joke”, after a video was published accusing her of lifting material from other standups.
In the video, footage from comedians Wendy Liebman, Kathleen Madigan, Tammy Pescatelli and the late Patrice O’Neal is juxtaposed with similar Schumer material. Madigan’s riffs about paying someone to slap food out of your hands and work your body out for you are similar to sketches on the show Inside Amy Schumer, while Liebman’s gag, “Maybe I’m old-fashioned but I like it when a guy pays – for sex”, is paired with Schumer’s: “I’m very old-school, I think the guy should always pay on the first date – for sex.”
As well as her response on Twitter, Schumer appeared on a US radio show to address the allegations. “I wanted to come and talk to you ... and clear my name, because I would never ever do that and I never have,” she said, adding that she is “literally going to take a polygraph test and put it on my show this season ... I will show that I have never seen Patrice do that bit.
“I’m so like: ‘Is this anyone’s bit?’ I have to come up with so much material, for my TV show, this movie, standup, and I’m so careful, and none of these things had ever reached me. I would never do that, it would be so stupid for me to do that.”
Last year, Schumer addressed the similarity of a series of sexually explicit jokes to ones told by O’Neal, after they were highlighted by comedy critic Sean L McCarthy. “I have never seen that Patrice bit, but I will watch today. I love and miss him,” she wrote on Twitter.
Wendy Liebman has tweeted her support for Schumer, calling the jokes “parallel thinking”.
I think both @amyschumer and I like it when a man pays...for sex. #greatminds #parallelthinking https://t.co/zWQKo4Kj5F
— Wendy Liebman (@WendyLiebman) January 20, 2016
Schumer said in the radio interview: “Kathleen and Wendy know me and don’t believe I would do that – I think that Tammy is trying to get something going, I don’t know ... I think she is upset ... people get upset by success.” Schumer added that she had blocked Pescatelli on Twitter after she was “unkind” to Schumer’s friend Rachel Feinstein; Pescatelli has responded on Twitter to say any reported dislike of Feinstein “couldn’t be further from the truth”, and appeared to deny trying to “get something going”.
I appreciate the credit of being a mastermind,but I am ahard working wife,mom&comic.I barely have time 2start my car https://t.co/w1opUzLIoa
— Tammy Pescatelli (@TammyPescatelli) January 21, 2016
Schumer ended by saying: “You can edit together a video, and it’s not fair and it’s not cool, but I’m not a little weakling. It makes me upset, and angry, and then I just get stronger, and I’ll fight back. I am not going to become one of these other comics who’s been accused of stealing jokes. This will not be a part of my name.”
