He only announced his “retirement” last November but Dapper Laughs is already back and busy promoting his new DVD, “Dapper Laughs Live: The Res-Erection.”
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The London-born stand-up comedian, whose real name is Daniel O’Reilly, made headlines last year when a film was circulated of him telling an audience member that she was “gagging for a rape” — one of many rape jokes he told at his show at the London Scala on Oct. 16.
It didn’t take long for ITV to take his show Dapper Laughs: On The Pull off air and the public furore resulted in O’Reilly appearing on Newsnight to try to make amends. During that interview with Emily Maitlis he said his character Dapper Laughs was no more.
Alas, he’s clearly had a change of heart. As part of Dapper Laughs’ resurrection, O’Reilly was interviewed by feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, during which he made a surprising revelation: he’s a feminist, saying he agrees “with equal rights for men and women.”
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He also reveals that he’s learnt a lot from the whole experience, saying: “I didn’t realise how much women have to deal with sexual advances and sexual harassment on just an average day-to-day basis. I didn’t know how much of a problem it was until my content about it come under so much fire. I’ve matured a lot and learnt about it. (sic)”
In the interview O’Reilly describes how the public reaction to his content affected his family, who received enormous amounts of abuse. Interestingly he says he wished he had “defended the rape comment a bit more” as it “had been taken out of context.”
Hopefully what happened last year made a few more men think twice about treating women as second-class citizens and it’s great that O’Reily himself has learnt from the experience. However he’ll always just be the guy who made the really disgusting rape joke.
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