Carr: 'I thought joke was acceptable'

Jimmy Carr has insisted that he did not think his joke about amputee soldiers was inappropriate when he wrote it.

The stand-up was criticised for the gag and later admitted to feeling hurt by the media fallout over the one-liner.

Of the decision to cut the joke from his set, Carr told The Guardian: "I thought I'd leave it. Otherwise it looks like you haven't taken [the row] seriously.

"I didn't write the joke and think, 'That's an unacceptable joke, that's an unacceptable thing to say, but will I get away with it?'.

"I thought it was a totally acceptable joke and a point to make, but now it's become something else. The other reason not to tell it now is that people have heard it."

He continued: "There is a tendency when someone is upset to say, 'Well, I was highlighting the tragedy'. I wasn't. I was trying to make people laugh.

"If you come up with a joke about something that's uncomfortable to talk about - abortion, there's a good example - it's not a difficult moral decision not to do the joke if it isn't that funny.

"But if you come up with a joke about abortion and you tell it to your friend, and your friend goes, 'Oh my God, you can't say that on stage - but that is f**king wicked', then suddenly morals go out of the window and you go, 'We're definitely doing that'."

Of the media outcry, he added: "I think it's fair enough. I think it was my turn. I've been telling these kind of jokes for ten years, and it could have been any one of a hundred jokes that became a cause celebre. I think there's a climate out there."