Jimmy Kimmel has been slammed by Irish stars for his so-called “Paddywhacking” Oscars gags.
The chat show host, 55, returned for his third stint hosting the Academy Awards on Sunday (12.03.23) and his opening monologue included a clanger about the “fighting Irish” stereotype – before he mocked Colin Farrell’s accent during one of his sketches that saw him wonder around the audience asking bogus questions sent to them by “viewers”.
RTE radio host Lottie Ryan, 37, was among the first to criticise Jimmy, and said: “It just hasn’t gone down well. It’s not just Jimmy Kimmel that writes these scripts and jokes.
“There is a whole team that puts these things together. Ireland was kind of the butt of the joke, you know? There was reference to the fighting Irish.”
Jimmy joked during his Oscars opening monologue: “Five Irish actors are nominated tonight, which means the chances of a fight just went way up.”
And when he joked about Colin Farrell’s accent, the actor used a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch to hit back at Jimmy for his Irish-bashing.
Jimmy – who appeared on stage with a donkey during one joke about how the animal had swallowed the fingers of Brendan Gleeson’s character in multi-Oscar nominated ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ – asked Colin “on behalf” of a fan about his role in multi-Oscar nominated ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’: “What were you saying?”
Colin hit back: “I’d like you to go on YouTube, check out ‘SNL’ last night, and you’ll have a good idea.”
The actor was referring to the comedy show’s recent, and now controversial, Oscars skit, during which Mikey Day and Molly Kearney acted out Colin and his co-star Brendan Gleason, 67, talking gibberish in a red carpet chat before their “interviewer” Marcello Hernandez joked: “And they haven’t even started drinking yet!”
Viewers hit out at the sketch for stereotyping the Irish as incomprehensible drunks, with others stressing how Colin, who missed out on the Best Actor Oscars for ‘Banshees’ has been sober for years.
Irish comic Oliver Callan, 42, said on RTE Radio 1 about the ‘SNL’ sketch referenced by Colin: “Wow. And Colin Farrell hasn’t had a drink for 20 years.
“And, you've done no research, ‘Saturday Night Live’. It was just bizarre. ‘Saturday Night Live’ wasn’t funny.”
