Amy Schumer is facing a backlash for revealing a joke she wanted to tell at the Oscars about Alec Baldwin and the shooting on the Rust set last year that resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
The comedian co-hosted the Academy Awards last week, on the night that Will Smith infamously slapped Chris Rock on stage, and having expressed her anger over the situation she has now revealed that she "wasn't allowed" to use her Baldwin joke.
"I was kind of feeling myself... and then all of a sudden, Ali was making his way up," Schumer joked, referencing Smith's role as boxer Muhammad Ali in the movie, Ali. "And it was just a f****** bummer."
Schumer's first public comments about the night came during her stand-up show at the Mirage Theater in Las Vegas over the weekend, per The Hollywood Reporter.
She continued: "And it was just a f****** bummer. All I can say is that it was really sad, and I think it says so much about toxic masculinity. It was really upsetting, but I think the best way to comfort ourselves would be for me to say the Oscar jokes that I wasn't allowed to say on TV."
Schumer, who hosted the Oscars with Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes, noted that her lawyer advised her not to say some jokes, which were cut for the Academy Awards, with one joke in question being: "Don't Look Up is the name of a movie, more like don't look down the barrel of Alec Baldwin's shotgun."
She added: "I wasn't allowed to say any of that but you can just come up and [clock] someone."
Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger on the gun that discharged live ammunition and fatally killed cinematographer Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust last October.
Hutchins' family filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Her husband, Matthew, filed the complaint on behalf of himself and their nine-year-old son, Andros.
Schumer's joke is being widely discussed on Twitter today, where her jibe about Hutchins' death is being branded as "tasteless."
"The joke Amy Schumer regrets not doing at the Oscars is not only inaccurate, but tasteless. Glad she didn't use it, that show had enough problems," tweeted S. E. Cupp.
While GOP strategist Doug Heye similarly called it "clueless," tweeting: "Amy Schumer talks about how she was triggered by one adult slapping another, but a member of the film community tragically killed on set and she thinks that's joke material and that she's somehow being treated unfairly? Big difference between being edgy and tasteless/clueless."
Author Emmett Macfarlane added: "Didn't tell that Alec Baldwin joke on the advice of her lawyers? They might've saved her career, not from anything like defamation but from a joke so unfunny it would've been the end of her career."
Another tweet reads: "Amy Schumer: Will Smith slapping Chris Rock was a traumatic moment for poor me. Also Amy Schumer: Remember when Alec Baldwin killed a women! Isn't that funny!"
Previously, Schumer admitted she was feeling "triggered and traumatized" following Smith's slap at the Oscars, writing on Instagram: "I love my friend [Chris Rock] and believe he handled it like a pro. Stayed up there and gave an Oscar to his friend [Questlove] and the whole thing was so disturbing.
"So much pain in [Will Smith] anyway I'm still in shock and stunned and sad. I'm proud of myself and my cohosts. But yeah. Waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
