US show apologises for Nazi joke about cancer patient

Photo credit: YouTube / TBS
Photo credit: YouTube / TBS

From Digital Spy

A comedy news satire show has apologised after making a Nazi joke about a cancer patient.

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee tackled the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, when a joke was made at the expense of one of the attendees.

Show correspondent Michael Rubens mocked the guy's "Nazi hair", but it turns out that the man has brain cancer.

"This year, the bow ties were gone and replaced by Nazi hair," he said.

The man is Kyle Coddington, and he and his sister both called out the programme on the joke.

"When @iamsambee makes fun of your brother for having 'Nazi hair'," Kyle's sister wrote on Twitter. "He actually has stage 4 brain cancer, but whatever floats your boat."

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee posted an apology on Twitter not long afterwards, explaining that it did not realise Kyle's condition at the time.

"We deeply apologize for offending @_that_kyle in our CPAC segment," the statement read. "We only learned of his condition today & have removed him from the piece."

The show also donated $1,000 towards his cancer expenses through GoFundMe.

But Kyle took issue with the show's apology.

"The effects of the comments made on Full Frontal go further than my battle with a serious illness," he wrote. "Everyone in that video was targeted unjustly and profiled without facts or proof of the accusations made.

"Samantha Bee tweeted an apology for 'offending' me, but I want to make it clear that half-apologising for offending someone is not apologising for making baseless accusations against people because of the way they look.

"This kind of behaviour should be rejected by both sides of the aisle."


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