Free Now has ended its sponsorship of The Tommy Tiernan Show, after the presenter made an “unacceptable” joke about taxi drivers at a recent gig.
The taxi booking app, who had a six-figure sponsorship with the RTÉ show, confirmed the news in a statement to the Sunday Independent.
A spokesperson for the company said: “As a recent sponsor of The Tommy Tiernan Show on RTÉ, we were disappointed about the comments made at his Vicar Street gig regarding taxi drivers.”
“Free Now works in close partnership with taxi drivers throughout the country to provide an important transport service for passengers across Ireland. Prejudice of any kind towards taxi drivers is unacceptable.”
“We decided to conclude our sponsorship of the show last week but will continue to work with RTÉ on other projects going forward,” the statement concluded.
Earlier this month, RTÉ presenter Emer O’Neill walked out of Tommy’s Vicar Street gig after he told the controversial joke.
She shared a video from the night to Instagram, and wrote: “A night that was to be fun and full of laughter turned sour with a way too close to the bone joke by @officialtommedian at his @vicar_st gig tonight.”
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“His first joke of the night straight out of the gate began with and I paraphrase (please if you were there too, correct me if I am wrong),” Emer added, before revealing what Tommy said.
“‘My daughter told me I shouldn’t tell this joke… So I was at the zoo the other day and looking at the penguins they are like little nuns walking around with rosary beads.’”
“‘Then the wolves so Irish fierce/strong then we went to the African Savannah and ….. it was full of taxis drivers! Ok now I’m looking at a room of white faces and everyone is laughing so I think I’m ok it wasn’t a racist joke.’”
Emer later revealed she received an email and phone call from Tommy apologising for the “hurt” he caused her.
Tommy also issued a statement about the incident, which was read out by Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1 earlier this week.
“On Friday the 6th of January, Tommy told a joke on stage as part of his stand-up routine,” it reads.
“As soon as he received a complaint, he spoke to that audience member to understand where he went wrong.”
“He immediately removed the joke from the set and apologised both personally by phone and email and publicly by addressing it on stage the following night and every night since reiterating his apology.”
“Tommy does not condone any negative online comments received by this audience member and most definitely not in his defence,” the statement concluded.
Emer spoke to Claire Byrne at length about the “offensive” joke, and said she felt Tommy’s apology was “genuine”.
“Because that’s the first I’ve heard and that’s the first public statement I’ve heard from anyone affiliated with him,” the RTÉ presenter said.
“But it’s not me who needs it. I believe he has apologised to me and I am very thankful for that but it is not only me that was affected by this.”
Pic: Brian McEvoy
“An apology to me is one thing but when so many people are affected by this, it is no good to just apologise to me,” Emer continued.
“There is an entire community that have suffered from this. This was traumatic for other people because they had to read things like, ‘You Africans all need to go back to your own country.’”
“Again, I appreciate the apology to me personally.”
“It’s not what I want. I believe it would be an amazing thing to do for him to make a statement to the rest of Ireland so that our community can heal from that.”
