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Comedian Robin Ince has accused Ricky Gervais of bullying him while they were on tour together.
Ince, 55, quit comedy in 2015 after saying he needed to spend time with his family. However, in resurfaced comments featured on a July episode of podcast The Starting Line, he suggested there was more going on behind the scenes, claiming his interactions with Gervais caused him to break out in “red lumps”, which his doctor diagnosed as a stress rash.
“I look back now, and I think it is bullying – really it is,” he said of the experience, adding: “I’m very good at sometimes just acclimatising to things, in which you go, ’Actually, this is really weird’.”
Ince, who is best known for presenting his show The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox, opened for Gervais in stand-up shows, including Fame, in the 2000s. He claimed that comments he received got so bad that Mackenzie Crook, Gervais’s co-star in BBC sitcom The Office, was forced to intervene.
Explaining how the experience had an impact on him, Ince continued, “People who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked.
“I am not saying it is a traumatic experience, but after two weeks, I came out in red lumps that my doctor said were a stress rash. I think my hair is coming out in clumps.”
Ince revealed he has not spoken to the After Life star since calling him out for making offensive comments about the transgender community in 2022.
“It is easy to forget the collateral damage of jokes,” Ince said at the time.
“Anti-trans punchlines seem to have become highly profitable and it ignores the dehumanising effect on a swathe of already marginalised people,’ he wrote, adding: ‘I think Ricky believes it is just him being a ‘naughty boy”.
Earlier this week, comedy skits by Gervais were shown during a trial in which three men were accused of performing a Nazi salute outside a Jewish museum.
In the skit, Gervais performs a mock Nazi salute and pushes his hair down to imitate Hitler, saying: “I do that quick so no one can take a picture of me doing that. Not a traditional subject for comedy, the old Holocaust.”
It comes after the comedian faced criticism for a controversial joke about terminally ill children and the Make-a-Wish foundation in his Netflix special last year.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Gervais for comment.
