Father Ted creator broke down in tears as he performed in the street after two venues cancelled his Edinburgh Fringe show.
The Comedy Unleashed event lost both its original and replacement venue due to his outspoken criticisms of the trans rights movement, while against the original venue.
The IT Crowd creator – who also created sitcom Black Books – has previously compared trans children to ‘Nazi’ experiments’ and branded trans rights activism ‘evil’.
On Thursday night, the comedian and other acts performed outside Holyrood, and became emotional as he addressed the backlash.
He said: ‘I’ve never seen anything as insane as the last two days.
‘And I keep asking people what I’ve said wrong and what I’m saying wrong in this fight about women’s spaces, about children being mutilated in and sterilised in clinics and about the women who are being harassed and threatened for standing up.’
He insisted comedy is his ‘first love’, noting that he wanted to tell ‘a couple of silly jokes’ and adding: ‘They can’t even let me do that.’
Speaking to MailOnline, he insisted ‘they can’t really hurt me anymore’ as he responded to his critics.
He said: ‘The time they were able to hurt me was when I was still married. When they were coming after my family, that was when it was painful, horrible and unpleasant.
‘I had to go on medication. When enough of that happened and they broke us up, then they couldn’t hurt my wife and kids anymore.’
He insisted that ‘trans-rights activists are the most evil people in the world’, claiming he enjoys ‘making them angry because they’re terrible people’.
He added: ‘I want to to make it clear, I’m not talking about trans people, I’m talking about trans rights activists. Two very distinct groups that often have nothing to do with each other. I just think they need to be defeated completely.’
The initial show was cancelled by Leith Arches as the venue said Linehan’s views don’t ‘align’ with their own values.
The advertisement for the show had boasted a ‘famous “cancelled” comedian’ on the lineup, and shortly after Linehan was announced the venue took action.
Although the show was billed as an ‘Edinburgh Fringe event’, it was not on the official line-up of shows at the festival.
Comedy Unleashed show organisers Andrew Doyle later said the replacement venue had also cancelled, as he tweeted: ‘Our replacement venue for Comedy Unleashed at the Edinburgh fringe has now also cancelled on us.
‘So @Glinner [Graham Linehan] and the other acts will do the gig on a small stage outside the Scottish at Holyrood at 7:30pm.’
In 2020, Linehan was banned from Twitter for violating its hateful conduct rules with comments about trans people. He was reinstated – with the likes of – in Elon Musk’s takeover.
