A furious email from Barry Humphries after he fell out with Melbourne International Comedy Festival organisers has emerged as the event is inundated with more backlash after his death.
The Aussie icon, 89, best known for his roles as Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, died in Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital surrounded by his family on Saturday night following complications from hip surgery.
Humphries helped launch the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 1987 and had an award named after him at one stage before he fell out with organisers in 2019 over ‘anti-trans’ comments.
Organisers dropped a major award in his honour following his comments made a year earlier about transgender people, including that it was a ‘fashion’ fad and that gender reassignment surgery was ‘self-mutilation’.
As organisers of the festival try to ‘uncancel’ the much-loved entertainer and announce plans for a ‘fitting tribute’, a scathing email has emerged from Humphries about being banned by the festival he helped turn into one of the world’s biggest comedy events.
The late Barry Humphries (pictured with his wife Lizzie and sons Oscar and Rupert ) fell out with Melbourne International Comedy Festival organisers five years ago
The email was sent in October 2020 after Humphries signed a petition supporting Harry Potter author JK Rowling after she received death and rape threats from trans-activists.
Humphries wrote to petition organiser Graham Lineham and described the backlash against Rowling as ‘cowardly portrayal’.
‘You have my signature. Thanks for your letter. I’ve been banned by the Melbourne Comedy Festival which Peter Cook and I launched,’ Humphries began.
‘I’ve been attacked and branded fascist and transphobic by the ‘they’ brigade and accused of racism by people who have never met an Aborigine.
‘That actors who have become rich and famous by performing in JKR’s plays and films and then vindictively excoriated her, seems like a cowardly betrayal.’
He signed off: ‘Thanks for writing to me and good luck against a powerful and malign foe.’
A scathing letter (pictured) from the Aussie icon has emerged about being ‘banned’ by the festival has emerged in the wake of his death
The email was read out by 2GB broadcaster Ben Fordham on Wednesday as he joined the bandwagon of backlash against event organisers trying to ‘uncancel’ Humphries following hisdeath .
Others who have leapt to Humphries’ defence to call out the festival in recent days include British comedian John Cleese, British-Australian actress Miriam Margoyles, UK commentator Piers Morgan and Australian entertainment reporter Peter Ford.
‘Here’s a crazy idea, don’t cancel people in the first place, all because they say something you don’t like,’ Fordham fumed.
‘Comedy is supposed to be confronting and there’s this little thing called freedom of speech.’
‘He was a man in his 80s expressing an opinion and he was smashed by these morons.’
Barry Humphries was best known for his role as Melbourne housewife Dame Edna Everage
Fordham ended his six minute rant with a strongly worded message to festival organisers whom he described as ‘a bunch of gutless wonders.’
‘The woke warriors tried to tear down the reputation of a great artist and now that he’s dead, you’re hit by the karma bus,’ he said.
‘Suck it up, accept your medicine and grow a set. And learn from a lesson from your heartless and hypocritical stance. You can’t uncancel him now, just because he’s dead.
Nasty blow for Barry Humphries just hours after his death and how he was left deeply hurt before his death: ‘I’m furious about how he was treated in Australia’
British-Australian actress Miriam Margoyles leapt to the defence of her friend of 65 years as she paid tribute to Barry Humphries as a ‘great artist’ while also conceding his faults.
She slammed the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and said Humphries was ‘deeply hurt’ by being ‘cancelled’ the event he helped establish in the 1980s.
‘I don’t think he was properly appreciated by Australia. I don’t think he was properly treated, particularly by the Melbourne festival who cancelled him rather late in life,’ she told the ABC on Sunday.
‘How dare they!
‘He had more talent in his little finger than they did in their whole bodies all of them. I’m outraged by it. I want to speak up now to support him.
‘I’m furious about how he was treated in Australia. I think it’s disgraceful, and to all these people who think how clever they are, sharpen up and get to know what’s really important.’
Margoyles conceded Humphries had his faults and that she not always agreed with his views.
‘He was acerbic, and he was often quite nasty, but he was a genius, and you have to accept it,’ she added.
‘Barry was one of the greatest comics to have ever lived, one of the greatest satirists, one of the wisest, sharpest blokes you could ever meet.’
‘I’m lucky I knew him for so long.’
She added she didn’t really like Humphries’ politics but revered his talent.
‘If people don’t see that, they need something shoved up their bum!’ Margoyles fumed.
‘I’m not saying he was right in his politics. I told him to his face he was wrong and that I didn’t agree with him.’
‘But he was the greatest comic who ever lived.’
A heartbroken Miriam Margoyles (pictured) was friends with Barry Humphries for 65 years
Hannah Gadsby’s (pictured) comments slamming Barry Humphries have resurfaced in the wake of his death.
Entertainment reporter Peter Ford agreed Humphries had been deeply hurt by how he was treated in his final years.
‘Barry did have a problematic relationship with Melbourne, and with Australia generally, and the big elephant in the room is a terrible way he was treated by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival about five years ago,’ Ford told Sunrise on Monday.
‘They may have had their own justification for doing what they did, but I don’t think they handled it well.
‘Barry made comments about trans people which were considered to be offensive and as a result of that, they dropped a major award at the comedy festival named after Barry, and dropped him completely.
‘Expats always want validation in their hometown, and this was Barry’s hometown, and he helped create the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, so to kick him in the guts like that really hurt.’
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