Peter Kay has broken his silence after kicking three hecklers out of his Manchester gig and claimed they were spoliling the show for the rest of the audience.
The comedian, 51, said there becomes a point where it’s ‘no longer fair’ to the crowd who have paid to see him and also defended calling one woman Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley before evicting her from the arena, reports GMB.
In a statement given to the ITV show, he said: ‘I didn’t realise it was an insult. She did look remarkably like Lisa Riley, I didn’t realise that was an insult.’
The hosts revealed that Peter had told them overnight ‘he felt he had no option but to remove the hecklers and said they were spoiling the show.’
They reported that the rest of his statement read: ‘There comes a point when dealing with repeared hecklers simply isn’t enough. It’s not something you ever want to do but it becomes a point when it’s no longer fair to everyone around.’
Lisa showed her support for the under fire star as she told her dans she ‘loves Peter Kay to pieces’ and said his joke was merely a ‘laugh’ in new Instagram posts.
Peter Kay has broken his silence after facing backlash over his ‘offensive show’ saying he had ‘no choice’ but to kick two audience members out of his London gig (pictured 2017)
The comedian, 51, said there becomes a point where it’s ‘no longer fair’ to the crowd who have paid to see him and also defended calling one woman Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley before evicting her from the arena, reports GMB
Peter was pictured looking slimmer while heading to his tour bus while leaving London’s O2 arena in January. His performance in Manchester on Saturday night has sparked a row with some leaving early
She wrote: ‘Please draw a line under this now, I am not offended, never was offended. I love Peter Kay to pieces. Laughter is my favourite medicine.
The soap star also shared a picture of the quote ‘keep calm and laugh’ and wrote in the caption: ‘It’s a laugh, it’s funny!’.
One of the hecklers, Philip Peters, 54, and his son, 26, were abruptly evicted from the Co-Op arena and he has since clamed he was treated ‘like a terrorist’ by security staff when his only crime was ‘shouting garlic bread’.
However, Peter’s fans have backed the comic’s decision to throw hecklers out of his homecoming gig on Saturday night, claiming the drunk troublemakers had been ‘spoiling the show’.
Peter, who is currently on his £27million Better Late Than Never Again! Tour, was labelled ‘nasty and bitter’ after he asked security to drag away a man repeatedly shouting, ‘garlic bread’.
Afterwards a woman who yelled ‘we love you Peter’ was ordered to be removed by Mr Kay, who was accused of making a cruel joke about the woman’s weight comparing her to Lisa Riley, witnesses claimed.
But now another audience member, sitting just a few seats away from the mischief-makers, has claimed that both ‘absolutely deserved’ to be removed – so much so it was met with loud cheers from those sitting around him.
‘The guy he chucked out absolutely deserved it,’ Jo Llewellyn told MailOnline. ‘He was extremely drunk even before the show started and continued to make a nuisance of himself as the show went on.
Lisa showed her support for the under fire star as she told her followers his joke was merely a ‘laugh’ in a new Instagram post on Monday evening
Peter Kay fans were left outraged after the ‘nasty and bitter’ moment he threw out hecklers with a Lisa Riley jibe as they slammed the comedian’s ‘offensive’ impression of a blind person at his Manchester show on Saturday evening (pictured 2017)
‘For those of us who sat beside him he ruined the gig. And as for the lady, she was a few seats behind and the people she sat next to also commented that she had been a huge pain and was disrupting the show for others.
‘I am glad Peter took a stand and removed them as the show was being spoiled for a lot of people… And if people were so offended at the hecklers being chucked out, why did the crowd near them cheer loudly when they were removed?’
Some audience members had decided to leave the show at Manchester AO arena on Saturday night after Mr Kay ordered security to turn on all the lights when his bit about kidney stones was interrupted for the third time by the man shouting.
Once the bright lights were on, Mr Kay is said to have pulled up a chair on stage and directed his security to remove the man as well as his friends, another source told MailOnline.
At this point the heckling man, along with his son, allegedly got very abusive towards the security guards’, according to witnesses.
The man was then taken out by four security guards – ‘one on each leg and one on each arm’.
‘It wasn’t a case of escorting him out, it was a case of physically removing him,’ one audience member said.
As the men were escorted out of the arena, the woman sitting behind them shouted ‘we love you Peter’ to which he asked, ‘had a drink have we?’
The 52-year-old funnyman then instructed the security team to also remove the woman from the crowd before telling her ‘go on, off you go Lisa Riley’, in reference to the Emmerdale actress and comedian.
And while some accused Mr Kay of a ‘nasty and bitter’ approach to hecklers, those sitting closest to the noisy crowd applauded the decision.
Another audience member said: ‘I was seated near the people, and they were a pain in the backside.
‘They were asked several times to be quiet as the old people near them could not hear over their heckling ‘garlic bread’ not just once but many times.
‘We all clapped when he got rid of them and Peter in his own manner dealt with it very well. I thought he gave us what we wanted; it’s what we all waited over two years for.’
A third said: ‘My daughter was at that show and was glad that the people shouting were removed.
‘Peter Kay did ask if the people shouting were annoying the rest of the audience first upon which the audience said that the people were.
‘Shouting repeatedly garlic bread was not banter but disruptive in not a funny way. Bravo to Peter Kay, they spent a lot of money on those tickets and had waited two years.’
Others sitting further away from those disruptive members of the audience, however, were left less than impressed by Mr Kay’s ‘outburst’ – before claiming his ‘performance was poor’.
Another woman, who also asked to remain anonymous, said Mr Kay, who was using the show for a live recording, seemed in a ‘bad mood’ from the offset.
‘It seemed like he was in a bit of a bad mood from the off – I don’t know why,’ she told MailOnline. ‘The way he was telling his comedy was different to how it used to be, he would start on a joke and then go off on a tangent.
‘A lot of the humour was very crude and lewd – I didn’t expect to hear about his penis as much as we did, didn’t expect to hear about erections. This is a family show, there are young teenagers there up to people in their 70s and it didn’t feel like a lot of people expected.
While one man was removed for repeatedly shouting out ‘garlic bread’, a woman was also then asked to leave after she shouted out ‘We love you Peter Kay’ as the comedian shouted back: ‘Go on, off you go Lisa Riley’ (Lisa pictured in August 2024)
The funnyman also made a range of offensive and uncomfortable jokes, including a blind person impression and saying he hadn’t had an erection for years after ‘sertroline 40mg’
‘If you want crude humour there are other people you can go and see. If you are going to see Peter Kay you expect a wholesome, family show.’
It was Mr Kay’s decision to evict the hecklers, however, which was the final straw for the woman and her friend, who decided to leave the show after that.
‘The person who shouted garlic bread shouted it twice before but with engagement from Peter. After the interval, he returned and was making a joke about kidney stones,’ she added.
‘The guy then shouted garlic bread and Peter said ‘Nick, Nick, put the lights on’. Then the arena lit up and they instructed security to go get rid of him.
‘Now if this guy was getting on his nerves, he could have quite easily during the interval – which was quite literally just minutes before – said to his staff this guy is getting rowdy can you please deal with him. But he didn’t.
‘Instead, he did it in front of the whole arena. There was a bit of confusion from the guy, asking if they were being serious.’
Mr Kay then asked for the woman to be removed, calling her ‘Lisa Riley’ – Ms is best known for portraying Mandy Dingle in the ITV soap Emmerdale and has been open about her own battle with weight, shedding 12 stone in recent years.
It came after Peter Kay was pictured ahead of the tour having lost a great deal of weight himself.
‘I just thought it was really cruel as he shouted ‘oh ay Lisa Reilly’ the woman added. ‘There was no need to call this woman that. She shouted ‘we love you Peter’ . It wasn’t offensive but she got thrown out.
‘It was just really mean to that woman. It was totally uncalled for calling that woman Lisa Reilly and getting her removed from the show. It just makes no sense to me.
‘And I used to love Peter Kay like everyone else but I just think if that’s who you are it is such a shame.
‘The way he treated that woman, I thought gosh what has happened to him? He is very different from how he was.’
Audience members had paid almost £200 for tickets to see Mr Kay’s long-awaited comeback tour – with many spending even more on transport and accommodation costs.
Taking to Twitter after the show, one enraged fan wrote: ‘ I’ve lost a lot of respect for @peterkay_co_uk’
Others described the ordeal as ‘harsh’ and ’embarrassing’
James Featherstone, from Harrogate, Yorkshire, had travelled to see the show with his wife and daughter.
And while he has been a fan of Mr Kay’s since the 90s he was left disappointed with the show and the comic’s treatment of the hecklers.
He told MailOnline: ‘When we first bought the tickets there was a lot of hype, expectations and excitement but on the actual night I could tell straight away from the beginning that he wasn’t himself.
‘I always imagined he would only deliver his own material and would never go near anyone else’s material and if something isn’t good enough, he wouldn’t present it but it didn’t feel like him at all. Some of the jokes were old jokes I heard years and years ago from other comedians.
‘And the thing about the hecklers, the guy shouting garlic bread, I imagine if you have a catch phrase someone shouts that at you every day of your life – it’s something that has made you millions and millions of pounds.
‘I can imagine only having shouted it three or four times was a lot lower than I would have expected. And the person who shouted it, I don’t think did anything wrong.
‘Peter Kay’s reaction was completely over the top to have them physically removed. At a push, ask them politely to leave. Having four people taking the guy out was overkill and not dignified either.
‘At one point, it wasn’t clear that Peter Kay wasn’t joking about him being removed. ‘It wasn’t a case of escorting him out, it was a case of physically removing him.’
Mr Featherstone also said it was ‘hypocritical’ for Mr Kay to call the woman Lisa Reily and said the jibe ‘wasn’t even funny’.
The long-standing fan of Mr Kay added that the comic had always been a ’10 out 10 performer but this felt more like a six out of 10′.
Another individual who attended the Manchester leg of his mammoth comeback tour on Saturday wrote online: ‘I’ve lost a lot of respect for Peter Kay after the way he treated the heckler at the end of his Manchester Feb 8 show.
‘Having him removed by force by his entourage and cracking jokes about it over the three or four minutes it took.
‘No manners. Huge waste of money.’
MailOnline have contacted Peter Kay’s representatives for comment.
The mammoth tour comes as Mr Kay topped the 2024 rich list thanks to his residency tour, which is estimated to have generated an impressive revenue of £27million.
The Better Late Than Never tour came up trumps, beating Michael McIntyre’s £10.3million revenue.
Tickets to the comic’s gig cost an average of £59.70 in comparison to Michael’s £43.35 tickets.
Mr Kay announced 21 new dates in November 2024, kicking off in February 2025 and will finish his show in February 2026.
Pete Kay Live originally kicked off in December 2022 and the new dates will see him visit 16 cities over the course of a year.
The new tour which will run in 2025 and 2026 will include his first dates at Aberdeen P&J Live, Brighton Centre, Bournemouth International Centre and Isle of Man Villa Marina.
Mr Kay has already broken records during the tour after selling out 45 dates at London’s O2 Arena, the only artist to do so in the world.
The funnyman also performed a record 100 shows at the Manchester AO Arena – breaking all attendance and performance records.
