Louis CK Backs Daniel Tosh In Rape Joke Flap

Comedian Daniel Tosh, host of the popular Comedy Central show Tosh.0, made headlines for allegedly telling an audience member Wednesday it would be funny if she were raped. A blog post detailing the incident went viral, as has a series of tweets from Tosh apologizing for the incident.

Now, Louis CK, another comedian known for pushing boundaries with often-offensive material, has added fuel to the fire.

After Tosh posted his short, two-part apology tweet, hundreds of people responded, some criticizing his behavior and others defending his statements. Louis CK, creator and star of the FX series Louie, was in the latter camp.

Your show makes me laugh every time I watch it. And you have pretty eyes, CK tweeted to Tosh amid the controversy.

It should come as no surprise to fans that CK ended up backing Tosh. Last year, he defended Tracy Morgan after his widely publicized homophobic comments. Louis CK's material has often dealt with offensive material, even up to rape. A scene in Louie shows CK dealing with a heckler who is offended by his jokes on the subject. CK, however, refrained from personally wishing rape on the heckler, as Tosh allegedly did.

A Tumblr under the name Cookies for Breakfast chronicles the story:

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, 'Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her...' and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there.

I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.

Tosh responded with a two-part tweet reading, all the out of context misquotes aside, I'd like to sincerely apologize. The point I was making before I was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them.

Tosh ended the apology with #deadbabies.