Tosh Apologizes For Rape Joke Aimed At Laugh Factory Audience Member, Owner Defends Comedian

Comedian Daniel Tosh issued an apology for making a rape joke targeting a female member of the audience at his latest stand-up show at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles after the incident was posted on Tumblr.

According to the Huffington Post, Tosh made a general remark in his about rape jokes being funny, upon which a female audience member (let’s call her Jane) proceeded to yell out that rape is never funny. Instead of carrying on with his act and ignoring the offended Jane, Tosh took a bit of a detour and responded to Jane’s comment in his own joking manner. The Tumblr post goes on to say:

“After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…’and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there.”

Tosh offered his own style of apology via Twitter after the post was picked up by multiple blogs:

“‘all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize”

And of course immediately added:

“the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them.#deadbabies”

Laugh Factory owner, Jamie Masada, seems to be on Daniel Tosh’s side though, reports E! News.

“Comedians sometimes tell jokes and sometimes they can be off-color. I think Daniel Tosh is one of the funniest comics alive. He is one of the most caring people I know. He had no intentions of hurting anyone. I understand where she is coming from, but Daniel Tosh did not attack this young lady. I feel bad for her and I apologize to her. If you are a member of the audience and you start dishing out something to a comic and try to be funny, you better be able to take it.”

The author of the post claims employees didn’t refund her ticket, but were “profusely apologetic” and offered a complimentary pair of tickets to another show. However, Masada claims she chose to take the tickets instead of a refund.

Do you think Tosh went too far? Do you think the owner of the club is wrong in defending the Tosh.0 star’s actions?