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Katie Price hurt by Frankie Boyle’s ‘despicable’ joke
C4 declines to apologise after Scottish comedian goes for glamour girl and her disabled son, Harvey
Lawyers for Katie Price - aka glamour model Jordan - have reported Channel 4 to the industry watchdog Ofcom following the broadcast of what they called a "despicable" joke by Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle about her disabled son, Harvey. Price demanded a public apology. When it was not forthcoming she instructed her lawyers to file an official complaint.
Boyle, who has a history of upsetting people with over-the-top jokes, made the "hurtful" remark in his late night C4 show Tramadol Nights.
He began: "Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey - eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him."
Then he added: "I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter - she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her..."
In a statement on her website, Katie Price wrote that Harvey, who suffers from septo-optic dysplasia and autism, was "a little miracle" who overcomes difficulties every day.
"If Mr Boyle had a 10th of his [Harvey's] courage and decency he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair.
"To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable, to broadcast it on television is to show a complete and utter lack of judgment."
Channel 4's position last night was that the the remark had been aired "in the context of a late-night comedy show" and that Boyle had used the line before in his live stage show. A spokesman said: "As with much of his material, [it] is an absurdist and satirical comment on high-profile individuals whose lives have been played out in the media."
Mark Bateman, a lawyer representing Katie Price, said: "Channel 4 have got this horribly wrong if they think their actions are defensible because Boyle is high-profile or because he has made this so-called joke before."
Boyle's previous run-ins with the taste police followed jokes about Downs Syndrome sufferers, Olympian Rebecca Adlington's looks and the Cumbria massacre.
Within a day of Derrick Bird's murderous rampage in June, when he shot dead 12 people including taxi driver Darren Rewcastle, Boyle told a live audience at the Hammersmith Apollo that he understood why someone would want to shoot taxi drivers in the head. ·
Comments
Jordan is well aware of the "All publicity is good publicity" adage hence the reason she has raised the profile of the incident.
If she was one iota interested in the feelings of her kids she would have said nothing and let it drop. Simply trying to extort money from C4 and Boyle.
some of you people are pathetic, everybody knows Frankie's material so if your not interested in his type of comedy then dont watch it. Is he being serious? who the COMEDIAN? get out of here? surely not. He tries to make people laugh and succeeds regularly with me. too many do gooders and jobs-worths around, life is for living, get off your pretentious horses.
she is so concerned about harvey yet banned pete from seeing him although they were very close,peter treated harvey as his own child this stinks as attention grabbing at any cost to keep her name in the public memory
I haven't seen it but I think Boyle's point is if you bring your kids into the spotlight then you are all fair game which I kind of agree with. The first part of the joke is funny, the second more shocking and not as funny. What do you expect from Boyle's show? It's billed as shocking, in-yer-face comedy and that's what it is, if you don't like shows like that then don't tune in.
Boyle is a nasty piece of s##t. I`m not an admirer of K.Price, she is just tits on legs. But her disabled son cant help being born the way he is. Its easy to verbally attack those that cant defend themselves. His sick so called joke about Diana was just that, sick. But a little piece of advise to boyle.Steer well clear of Colchester.His so called joke about squaddies not knowing there father`s did not go down very well. If he sets foot there, he could find himself looking up his own a+++hole.
You may not like it - and I don't - but we *need* the likes of Boyle.
It's Frankie Boyle, who in language he would get is the real ridiculous retard here. Oddly enough no comic who has had a disabled child has ever then made this sort of joke. The idiots who support the Boyle may like to scratch their heads very very hard, ( the scratchings might be used to kindle the fire), and ask their numbed imaginations how this could possibly possibly be. Were he ever to have a child with a disability maybe he might discover in one of the down moments.. for instance the waking up weeping in the middle of the night.. quite why. The world is not that friendly to disabled kids, not sth. you discover really until you are exposed. Leave them and their parents alone you smug unimaginative lucre-driven bully, Frankeee
OK, I give in...what's so "brave" about having been born with multiple afflictions?
I'm pretty sure he had no choice in being born afflicted.
Besides, it's not like the blind fat spazz knows anything different, is it?
All, being Scottish myself not all of us are pig faced but we are a brash race. As for the comments he made, yes harsh but that is his humour. Are we to riddicule every comedian who upsets a celebrity or says something that is over the top? If so then TV will no longer show comedy in any form in fera of reprisals. Perhaps Frankie Boyle should go to court about being referenced as pig faced. I doubt that he would or perhaps all Scottish comedians should take exception to this? where does it stop?
i thought this was hillarious. its a late night comedy show and things will be said. i personally wet myself. i feel jordan is trying to get some sympathy to extend her dying fame. she is not well liked her tv show s is getting bad ratings hence the dying fame.
There is no word to describe this man
Hope the bastard falls down the stairs and breaks his
neck, now that would be funny
I share the view that Boyle's comedy is vile, but adding a racist remark within your comment, James Morley, is vile too.
I wonder what Boyle looks like if he takes off his pig face mask, or do all Scottish comedians look that way?
Unpleasant "humour". Boyle seems to me to be a thoroughly unpleasant man; he is smart enough to recognise there are many scumbags around who think his lines are funny. He is vile enough to exploit the opportunity it creates for him. Whilst he is to be held responsible for his own actions we must recognise his success depends on there being a lot of scumbags. The irony is Jordan did the same. (Where is Dwight Yorke, the father of Harvey?).
So this is a "comedy show" and this foul-mouthed man is a comedian? What a joke! Having said that, he obviously knows his audience and that there will be people viewing who will appreciate his remarks. Perhaps they too should examine their consciences at being complicit in this type of material and no doubt applauding it. Pathetic!
As if poor Harvey doesn't have enough to deal with (I'm talking about his mum, not his disabilities)...
It's bad taste to make jokes about disabled children in general. Targeting one in particular is considerably worse.
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