A heckler ejected by Peter Kay during his comeback tour has spoken out about the Bolton comic’s ‘bullying’ comments.
The TV funnyman, 51, was on stage at Manchester’s AO Arena when a man in the audience apparently began repeatedly shouting ‘garlic bread’ at him.
It’s claimed that after another interruption, where a woman yelled ‘We love you Peter Kay’, Kay reportedly said ‘Go on, off you go, Lisa Riley’ – comparing her to the former Emmerdale actress and You’ve Been Framed presenter. The woman was then ejected by security.
The woman, later identified as Myar Curran, 25, felt ‘humiliated’ by incident.
Curran has since told Good Morning Britain: ‘I didn’t mean to cause any harm, I was just showing my love because he kicked someone out. “Oh, I’ll stand up and say we love you Peter”, but he just obviously didn’t like it.’
She added: ‘I feel like what I said was not abusive or aggressive, it wasn’t antisocial, I wasn’t drunk. I was just standing up chanting “We love you Peter, we do”. I feel like it’s just been taken a bit overtop and overboard, his reaction.’
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(Picture: Myar Curran/MEN MEDIA)
Curran was at the show with her dad, her auntie, her best friend and boyfriend and had been ‘really excited’ to watch the show – being a long-time fan of the Bolton-born comedian and having travelled from Scotland to attend.
‘We bought these tickets ages ago so we’ve been waiting years for this,’ Myar told the Manchester Evening News.
‘We were so looking forward to it. I lost my mum a couple of years ago and she was supposed to come to the show so it was something that was going to be very special to us.’
Curran went on to claim that while she had shouted ‘we love you Peter’ and was in the same section as the heckler, she had nothing to do with the repeated interruptions.
Curran said she later broke down in tears because of the incident and felt that the comparison was a jab at her weight as she ‘has put a bit of weight on’ since having a child.
She also claimed there was a nastiness in the comedian’s voice, and that being laughed at by over 2k people was extremely hard on her.
She continued: ‘I did have a cry about it after I got to the hotel room. I was just so upset. It was just a very rubbish situation. My whole family was disgusted by it.’
Peter has addressed his comment on Instagram, posting a story that reads: ‘At the show on Saturday night, February 8th, in Manchester, I had two hecklers disrupting from the very start. I did my best to address the situation and made light of it, as any comedian would, but unfortunately, their interruptions continued.
‘I then tried to ignore them, hoping they’d settle down, but when the disruption persisted into the second half of the show, l asked the audience around them if they were being bothered by the noise. They all shouted “yes,” and when I asked for a show of hands, at least forty people raised theirs.
‘At that point, I had no choice but to take action.
‘The lady who was escorted out did bear a striking resemblance to Lisa Riley, though I don’t see how that’s an insult.
‘This was only the second and third time I’ve had to ask someone to leave during my 114 shows over the past three years of this tour.
‘As a comedian, you never want to eject anyone, but when repeated disruptions make it impossible to continue, it’s important to consider the experience of the rest of the audience, who’ve paid to see a show without interruption.’
He previously said in a statement shared with Good Morning Britain: ‘I didn’t realise it was an insult.
‘The lady who was ejected did look remarkably like Lisa Riley, I don’t know how that is an insult.’
He added: ‘There comes a point where dealing with repeated hecklers simply isn’t enough.
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‘It’s not something you ever want to do, but there comes a point where it really isn’t fair on the people around them.’
Curran later responded to the comedian’s comments to the morning program, saying: ‘Well, I think he knew exactly what he was doing. If I was a bit skinnier, he wouldn’t have made the comparison. There was no pussyfooting about it, it was definitely about my weight and how I looked.’
Curran was quick to clarify she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with looking like Riley and doesn’t want the actress to think she’s offended by the comparison, she could just tell Kay meant the comparison in a ‘nasty’ way.
‘It’s just really gutting,’ she explained. ‘I might have understood it if I was shouting an insult but I wasn’t. He didn’t need to make it personal. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever watch him again.’
Kay is currently in the middle of his Better Late Than Never (Again) tour, which is an extension of his Better Late Than Never tour that started in 2022.
The Phoenix Nights star has returned to the stage after a hiatus of almost six years, following the abrupt cancellation of his planned 2018 tour Have Gags, Will Travel.
‘Garlic bread’ is one of Kay’s famous catchphrases and has followed him around almost since the very beginning of his comedy career.
But the Car Share actor’s old stand-up material came back to haunt him during a ‘chaotic’ show in Manchester on Saturday night.
Witnesses to the incident claimed that a man towards the front of the audience at the AO Arena began repeatedly shouting ‘garlic bread’ at high volume.
It was then reported that, during one of Kay’s routines midway through the live show, a woman nearby shouted that she ‘loved’ Kay and disrupted the show further.
Those in the audience then said that Kay stopped his routine to ask the audience if the two hecklers were beginning to get on their nerves.
When the audience shouted back to Kay that they were indeed irritated by the unexpected interruptions, the noisy pair were swiftly ejected by security.
As they were being escorted out, Kay said ‘Go on, off you go, Lisa Riley.’
However, while the majority of fans were on the comedian’s side, one audience member gave a different assessment of the situation (via MailOnline).
They said: ‘[It] was embarrassing, the guy only shouted garlic bread and the woman just shouted “We love you Peter”. Waited 20 years to see him and was disappointed.’
More reports from Saturday night’s show indicated that the man shouting ‘garlic bread’ began heckling after asking the audience for suggestions on a theme tune for his act.
At first, Kay is said to have seen the funny side but became increasingly impatient when the continued shouts of ‘garlic bread’ began to disrupt later parts of his act.
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The man shouting was ejected with a group of his friends after Kay apparently brought the house lights up inside the arena – a move some viewers deemed to be ‘nasty and bitter’.
By the end of the Better Late Than Never (Again) tour, the actor and stand-up star will have played 205 dates up and down the UK over the course of four calendar years.
His residency at the O2 Arena in London sold out 45 nights, making him the only act in the world to have ever achieved such a feat.
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Metro.co.uk has approached Peter Kay’s representatives for comment.
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