Jimmy Carr has shrugged off the backlash he’s received over his more controversial comedy, as he insisted that ‘there’s a real functionality’ to making jokes about ‘terrible’ events.

The comedian, 52, has found himself embroiled in controversy several times over the years for making quips about 9/11 and the Holocaust, previously admitting he was ‘a dab hand at [being cancelled] now.’

But in a new interview, he has insisted with comedy where it is today that ‘it feels like you can do whatever you want now’.

Jimmy admitted that his edgier jokes were ‘slightly playing with fire’, but that his ‘intention’ behind them was the most important thing, believing that they could be used as a way to ‘make sense of’ difficult topics.

Speaking to The Times about the criticism to his quips, he said: ‘Intention is important. With me, it’s clear what the intention of the evening is. But the way it can get reported is as if you’re shouting jokes through someone’s letterbox at 9am. I subscribe to the benign violation theory — that jokes are benign violations. You take a violation, no matter how extreme, but make it benign by joking about it.

‘Jokes can be a way to make sense of stuff. Think about how we use humour in our lives when something terrible happens, never mind on stage. There is a lot of laughter around grief, death and disease. There’s a real functionality to it. It makes something OK.’

Jimmy Carr has shrugged off the backlash he’s received over his controversial comedy, as he insisted that ‘there’s a real functionality’ to making jokes about ‘terrible’ events (seen 2019)

The comedian, 52, has found himself embroiled in controversy several times over the years for making quips about 9/11 and the Holocaust, previously admitting he was ‘a dab hand at [being cancelled] now’

The host went on: ‘It’s slightly playing with fire, but you don’t choose your sense of humour. It chooses you. It’s like Sєxual taste. Some like it spicy, others prefer milder stuff. But you don’t fake a laugh.’

He added that he felt that ‘it’s slightly a golden age, at the moment, for comedy’, referencing Peter Cook’s impression of then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1960s, before the abolishment of theatre censorship in 1968.

Jimmy has previously defended his more controversial quips, insisting there shouldn’t be any topic that people can’t make jokes about, saying it was like declaring ‘a disease is too terrible to treat’.

Appearing on The Development by David Podcast in April, he said: ‘Two dummies on Twitter go, “Oh I didn’t like that! Oh we shouldn’t joke about that! That’s too terrible to make jokes about!” 

‘The one thing that affects you is the bad thing is it? All the other stuff is fine? Saying something is too terrible to joke about is like saying a disease is too terrible to treat.’

While he added that he doesn’t engage with the critics, arguing that jokes ‘are like magnets, they attract some people and repel others’.

He said: ‘I try not to engage. I try as best as I can to go it’s absolutely valid that people don’t like some of my jokes. 

‘Jokes are like magnets, they attract some people and repel others. Some people are repelled by my sense of humour, they do not like it and they don’t come to the shows, or watch the Netflix specials. 

Jimmy has previously defended his more controversial quips, insisting there shouldn’t be any topic that people can’t make jokes about, saying it was like declaring ‘a disease is too terrible to treat’ 

‘But when the new Netflix drops a clip will go up online and it will show up in someone’s feed and they’ll watch it and go, “Ban this filth, this joke is so terrible I’ve got to send it to everyone I f***ing know.” But you gotta rightsize that.’

He recalled: ‘I remember James Corden was very sweet last time I got cancelled. He phoned me and went, “What’s happened? No, I’ll tell you what’s happened. You told a joke and some people didn’t like it. That’s it. Let’s go get lunch”.’

In his 2022 Netflix special His Dark Material, Jimmy faced backlash after he joked that the deaths of ‘thousands of Gypsies’ at the hands of Nazis had been one of ‘the positives’ of the Holocaust.

He said: ‘When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.

‘No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.’

He then explained why he thought it was a ‘good joke’, saying that it was ‘f**king funny’, ‘edgy as all hell’ and because it had an ‘educational quality’. 

The joke caused widespread backlash and prompted a debate about racism and free speech.

Fellow comedian David Baddiel slammed the joke as ‘racist’ and ‘inhumane’, saying: ‘You can obviously tell a Holocaust joke that is cruel and inhumane and mean-spirited and racist.

In his 2022 Netflix special His Dark Material, Jimmy faced backlash after he joked that the deaths of ‘thousands of Gypsies’ at the hands of Nazis had been one of ‘the positives’ of the Holocaust (pictured) 

‘Or you can tell one that targets the oppressors, or draws attention to the fundamental evil of it, or shines and light on the humanity of the victims. 

‘It’s not the subject matter of the joke that counts, it’s the specifics of the individual joke. Clearly, Jimmy Carr’s was the former.’

He added that while ‘Jimmy is a close friend of mine and a brilliant stand-up in general’ it ‘makes no difference to how I feel or think about this specific joke.’

Elsewhere, Irish traveller and bare-knuckle boxer Paddy Doherty said the ‘disgusting’ joke was an insult to the 1.5million gypsies exterminated in death camps.

He told the Sunday Mirror: ‘That wasn’t a joke. He’s talking about mᴀss murder being a positive – would he be allowed to say this about black people killed by the Ku Klux Klan? There’s a level you don’t go to. More than a million of my people were killed.’

However, Jimmy insisted he would never start apologising for offending anyone with his jokes and predicted that he would be cancelled again in the future over his comedy.

He said: ‘It won’t be the last time, it’s coming around again I’m sure. But as soon as you start defending jokes and start apologizing, you’re just in a world of pain. 

‘I’ve got a plan, there’s a bit on the new special where I talk about this. I say look, you can’t go round apologising for jokes, they’re jokes. 

The joke caused widespread backlash and prompted a debate about racism and free speech and fellow comedian David Baddiel (pictured) slammed the joke as ‘racist’ and ‘inhumane’

‘So what I’m going to do, the next time I get cancelled, the next time I upset people with a joke, I’m going to say on the day the news story comes out and I’ve rehearsed this, I’m going to say’, before adopting a mocking voice: “I’m sorry!”‘

He went on: ‘And the people that are offended are going to say, “You don’t really mean that apology” and I’ll say, “So you’re saying I can say something and not mean it? Now you’re getting it!” But it’s true right? It’s f***ing joke!’

Jimmy also expressed his thoughts on cancel culture as a whole, calling it ‘crazy Maoist f***ing bull***’.

He said: ‘I don’t mind people criticizing the jokes I’m pretty up for people going “yeah I don’t like it, I don’t like that kind of sense of humour.” Fine! But cancel culture is about trying to cancel the individual not criticize the idea. 

‘So if you try and cancel the individual and then if you say anyone that defends that individual you’re blackened by the same thing, that becomes a very different kind of crazy Maoist f***ing bull***. I’m not interested in that at all.’

However, he said that he didn’t agree that cancel culture was getting bigger, and instead insisted that you could get away with much more taboo topics in modern comedy than before.

He reasoned: ‘I don’t think it has, I think we’ve got much better. I think actually if you look at the basket of things you couldn’t say 30 years ago and the basket of things you can’t joke about now, I’d take the the basket now. 

‘I don’t think there’s much you can’t joke about now, I think it’s an illusion. I mean my tour is going great, I’ve got a Netflix special… what cancel culture?’