Reginald D Hunter has caused controversy at the Edinburgh Fringe festival as a couple was forced to leave after being heckled with anti-Israeli comments from the crowd.
Hunter, 55, was performing a comedy gig on Sunday night when halfway through his performance he made an anti-Israel comment that caused fans to call him out.
The controversy began when the comic made a joke about a documentary.
The comedian spoke about a scene from the documentary when a wife accused her husband of abuse and Hunter joked: ‘My God, it’s like being married to .’
A couple in the audience were unimpressed and reportedly called out, ‘not funny!’
The audience then heckled the couple telling them to ‘f**k off’ with reported cries of ‘you’re not welcome’ and ‘free Palestine’.
Dominic Cavendish, a reporter from attended this performance and said: ‘It was the most unpleasant comedy gig I’ve ever attended.’
The comic then said to the couple: ‘I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f**k you been?’
He then added: ‘You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.’
The woman from the couple reportedly then began to ‘remonstrate’ with the crowd. ‘Look at you making everyone love Israel even more,’ Hunter then added.
The couple then exited the gig with Hunter reportedly commenting: ‘That tells me that I still got voltage.’
The journalist added that the comic openly laughed at the audience members as they left the performance. ‘It turned out that the man was disabled, not that this caused a flicker of restraint in the host, who openly laughed at them.’
It was reported by The Telegraph that the comic then told a story about his previous Holocaust controversy and the paywall on the Jewish Chronicle’s website: ‘Typical f**king Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.’
‘It’s just a joke,’ he then added.
When an X user highlighted to the comic that his comments at the show had caused controversy, Hunter gave a non-committal response.
‘@reginalddhunter Been upsetting The Telegraph, I see,’ said NedFlippers.
‘Have I?!’ replied Hunter.
This isn’t the first time that the comedian has faced controversy for his comedy.
In 2006, Hunter was performing at the Fringe festival again when he was accused of antisemitism for making light of the Holocaust.
At the time his joke was about going to Austria and denying the Holocaust, where it is illegal to deny the genocide against the Jewish people during the Second World War. He then would tell the judge that he was denying the Rwandan Holocaust, not the Jewish one.
‘The joke isn’t about the Jews, it is about freedom of thought and freedom of expression,’ Hunter told Reuters at the time. He said the Holocaust was ‘one of those things considered to be off-limits’ as he explained: ‘That’s what I’m poking fun at. There have been loads of holocausts. Jews have the honour of having their holocaust known as “the Holocaust”, and that’s fine. That’s the way the world works.’
Additionally, Hunter has also faced backlash for allegations of misogyny and using the n-word in his show titles.
Following the news of this incident, the charitable organisation, took to social media to express concern about Hunter’s performance.
‘The events described at the Edinburgh Fringe are extremely concerning. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but they also have a responsibility to their audience.
‘Reginald D. Hunter has laughed off his Holocaust jokes and another supposed joke about “typical f***ing Jews” in the past, but watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.
The organisation then revealed that their lawyers were ‘examining the incident’.
The also commented on X: ‘This disgraceful incident – and the reaction of the audience – brings shame to the Edinburgh Fringe. The initial jibe at Israel then being followed by a line about “f***ing Jews” exposes, yet again, the true sentiments behind so much of the ‘anti-Israel’ movement.’
An Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society spokesperson told Metro.co.uk: ‘As an open access festival, the Fringe is not programmed by any single person or committee; the Fringe Society does not decide who performs at the festival and is committed to upholding the principles of creative freedom of expression.
‘The safety and well-being of artists and audiences is paramount. We are in touch with the venue to support and are not able to provide further comment at this point.’
