Amy Schumer Calls Out Former Staff Writer's Comments About Sexual Assault

Amy Schumer was pulled into a hailstorm of controversy on Twitter (where else) last night, and in the process she revealed her show Inside Amy Schumer is, in her words, “done.” The flak all has to do with one of her Inside Amy Schumer writers, comedian Kurt Metzger, who has been vocal about a sexual assault scandal that’s rocking the comedy world.

Updated 11:30am: Inside Amy Schumer has not been cancelled. Schumer tweeted “#InsideAmySchumer is not cancelled. @ComedyCentral has provided us with a wonderful home and we couldn’t be happier there. I am just touring…Doing Standup and focusing on writing more for the next year at least. We are slated for a season 5 but not in the foreseeable future.”

Upright Citizens Brigade comedian Aaron Glaser was banned from the popular New York City improv venue this week after two women accused him of rape, and Metzger, who has written for Schumer’s Comedy Central show since 2013, has been posting long, vehement rants on his Facebook and Twitter accounts blasting the very notion of “rape culture” and the idea that a woman’s rape allegations alone should not condemn a person before a proper investigation is conducted by police and guilt is established. Far from measured, his offensive posts have many suggesting he’s a rape-apologist and victim-blamer.

One particularly abrasive rant came on Monday, when Metzger criticized women who don’t take their rape accusations to the police, essentially calling women an “unthinking herd of mewling progressive cattle.” The Facebook post included such highly insensitive lines as, “If we ask them [women alleging rape] to even merely also post a vague account of what happened before asking us to believe that would like re-raping their rape! These women are as BRAVE as they are sore!”

And, while comparing the legitimacy of a woman’s word to the Bible (also bunk, in his opinion), “You think I would dare ask my God, Lord Jesus Christ the Nazarene to provide any ‘details’ or ‘evidence’ of any kind before I believe in him? Or a woman? No, because that be that would be like hammering the nails into Jesus My Lord’s feet! Or re-raping the victim’s good hole!!!”

According to research from the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), 97 out of 100 rapists receive no punishment, and only 6% of rapists ultimately go to prison. Out of every 46 rapes that get reported to police, only 12 lead to an arrest, 5 lead to a conviction, and 3 lead to jail time. Despite these facts — and the obvious humiliation many rape victims face when they have to come forward with their story — Metzger continued to point the finger at victims, insisting that they must go to the police and suggesting that their argument is invalid, and they’re doing a disservice to other victims, otherwise.

“I did not ‘yell at victims to go to police; They are VICTIMS. I am yelling at the people who said, ‘Women CAN’T go to the police! They have to work outside the system!‘” Metzger wrote. “I think that’s utter bull**** and leads to rapists walking free. It hurts the victims of sexual assault.”

Incensed by Metzger’s belligerence, social media users began calling for Metzger’s firing from Inside Amy Schumer by tweeting at Schumer, considered by many to be a modern feminist icon, en masse. The comedian finally responded yesterday in three tweets posted to her account, expressing her disappointment in her “friend” Metzger, decrying his missives (“his words are not mine”), then clarifying that she had not fired him, but rather that he doesn’t work for her anymore because “we aren’t making the show anymore.” (Metzger took credit for Schumer’s condemning tweets, writing on Facebook, “I specifically told her [Schumer] to do exactly what she did.”)

Many fans were shocked not just to learn that Inside Amy Schumer is no longer in production (no announcement had been made), but also to find they had been blocked by the comedian on Twitter for asking about the Metzger situation, or for simply mentioning his name.

Metzger has since apologized for his “inflammatory language,” saying on Facebook, “If my disjointed swatting at biplanes like King Kong confused and hurt reasonable people who agree with me, I apologize. It was never my intent to antagonize victims or their supporters. My defensiveness came from feeling deliberately misunderstood. … I stand by the points I made, but I sincerely apologize for using inflammatory language to make them.” His stance on the issue, however, remains the same.

Yesterday, the controversy was discussed at length on the podcast Race Wars, which Metzger co-hosts with comedian Sherrod Small. In the episode, which also featured Vocativ deputy editor Erin Gloria Ryan, Metzger continues to further an agenda that comes across as aggressively misogynistic, saying, “I kept getting my point just turned into … a lie.” His dismissed and justified his harsh words, too. “I thought it was such a clever, funny way to say it in my head because I’m right,” he said. “So I have to apologize for that part of it [the inflammatory language] because then people can’t stick up for me, when I’m right!”

Schumer has moved on from the controversy, which she seems eager to distance herself from, and is busy promoting her new “non”-memoir, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo. Metzger continues to address the issue on Facebook, Twitter, his podcast, and any other platform that gives him an audience.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.