The Project apologise after controversial religious joke
Hosts of The Project have issued a grovelling apology after a comedian shared a crude joke about religion live on air.
On Tuesday night's episode, queer comedian Reuben Kaye was relaying details of the online hate he receives, particularly from the Christian community, when he made the X-rated remark.
"I think it's hilarious when someone messages me and says 'You have to accept Jesus' love or you will burn in hell', because I love Jesus."
"I love any man who can get nailed for three days straight and come back for more,” Kaye quipped.
Waleed Aly looked stunned by the joke, while co-host Sarah Harris burst into laughter.
The joke prompted a wave of backlash online, with the Christian community demanding an apology from the panel show, while others called for the show to be cancelled all together.
On Wednesday night's show, Waleed and Sarah spoke directly to viewers as they apologised for Kaye's joke making it to air.
“During a live interview last night, our guest told a joke which we know was deeply and needlessly offensive to many of you," Waleed began.
“We want to acknowledge the particular offence and hurt that it caused our Muslim and especially our Christian viewers. Obviously, I understand how profound that offence was.”
Harris added, “Live TV is unpredictable. And when this happened in the last few moments of the show, it took us all by surprise, there wasn’t a lot of time to react in a considered way.”
Aly then said, “We weren’t expecting a comment like that to be made and we acknowledge the offence it caused. We are sorry.”
Some viewers were unhappy about the joke at the time, with one person writing on Twitter, “Absolutely disgusting comment about Jesus. He just insulted millions of people of faith.”
According to the 2021 Australian census, Christianity is the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population), although the results also showed that Australians are increasingly unlikely to worship a god with the number of Australians who said they had no religion rising to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016).
Image credits: The Project