Admin I Sunday, Sept. 08, 2024
BERLIN – German broadcasters Sat.1 has decided to cancel a TV show to be presented by comedian Luke Mockridge after he made derogatory comments about para-sport.
“The remarks about people with disabilities and para-athletes, about which many people were rightly outraged, do not reflect our values,” Sat.1 spokesman Christoph Körfer said on Sunday ahead of the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Paris.
Mockridge caused dismay some three weeks ago in the podcast “Die Deutschen” (The Germans), when he said, “there are people without legs and arms, who are thrown into a pool – and the last one to drown is the winner,” referring to para-sports.
The comedian has apologized and said in a post on Instagram it was never his intention “to ridicule people with disabilities, especially during the Paralympic Games.”
The German Paralympic Committee (DBS) on Saturday invited him to watch para-sport in response to his offensive statement.
“We would like to encourage people to watch para-sport live to experience the impressive performances that people with disabilities are capable of – and to understand what an asset they are to our society,” DBS told dpa on request.
Mockridge said he “very gladly” accepted the invitation and looked forward to learning from the experience.
He acknowledged that his attempt at comedy did not work out and took responsibility for it.
That, however, was not enough to avoid the cancellation of his show. From mid-September, he was to host the Sat.1 show “Was ist in der Box? Das Comedy-Quiz” (“What’s in the box? The comedy quiz).
Mockridge was once one of the faces of Sat.1. In August 2021, however, he announced that he would be taking a break and has barely appeared on television since then.
Körfer said that Sat.1 hopes that the comedian can find a way to “follow up his apology with action and continue to address the issue in the interests of all people disabilities and in the interests of all para-athletes who have impressed and enchanted us with their performances in Paris.”
