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7th September 2023
08:34am BST
Comedian Lee Mack has responded to complaints over his NSFW joke about Jill Scott at the NTA awards earlier this week.
The comedian from Southport picked up the Quiz Game Show award for The 1% Club during Tuesday's ceremony.
The award was presented to Mack by retired Lioness and Jungle Queen, Jill Scott, and British comedian, Mo Gilligan.
However when he collected the award, Mack made a comment which left many online to wonder if he’d find himself in hot water for the quick joke.
Holding the award, Mack joked: “To receive a sex toy like this off Jill Scott is an absolute pleasure.”
While Scott herself appeared to laugh at the joke, many took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to criticise the Not Going Out star.
One person wrote: “Well Lee Mack is gonna get cancelled now.”
A third commented: “Gutted lee Mack won and cruelly made jokes on stage at someone else’s expense. Be gracious and be kind.”
Others however took to the site to comment on how funny they found Mack’s speech to be.
One wrote: “This is amazing! Absolutely love the 1% Club and Lee Mack is brilliant!” while another said: “So glad the 1% club won the award, I knew Lee would give a banging speech.”
And now the comedian has responded, speaking to The Sun following the furore, he defended his joke and said live audiences will always take a joke better than those sitting at home: “My job as a stand-up comedian is to take the mickey out of the contestants.
"I decided never to be too cheesy with it. I just wanted to try to have a bit of a laugh. It's just like a gig, especially to 100 people. That was most of my Edinburgh Fringe shows back in the early days to 100 people. It's quite an intimate laugh and the one thing is the audience really can take it, you can take the mickey out of them. It's the people who are watching who get offended, not the audience. They're always OK about it."
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