Back in October, Amy Schumer was accused of ripping jokes from the late Patrice O’Neal when it was pointed out that a few jokes in her HBO special bore a remarkable similarity to a bit from the legendary comic. For her part, despite calling O’Neal a friend before he died, Schumer denied ever having even heard the bit. And even if she had, the accusations of joke theft are a little thin, as it wasn’t so much stealing the jokes as riffing off the same material.
Since then, an internet sleuth has done some digging and complied what is purportedly nearly six and a half minutes of evidence of Amy Schumer supposedly ripping off other comedians’ material. Included are both the Patrice O’Neal bits as well as some sketches that appeared on Schumer’s Comedy Central series, Inside Amy Schumer. They even went so far as to include a side-by-side of the Trainwreck poster and an It’s Always Sunny promotional shot, which in all likelihood was dictated by the studio’s marketing department.
So is this evidence that Amy Schumer is a joke thief? Of everything in the reel, the Wendy Liebman bit in the very beginning probably stands out as being the guiltiest example. But then again, most comedians aren’t scrutinized to the level Schumer is. How many comedians would hold up to having hours and hours of their material being picked over with a fine-toothed comb to see if they lifted a few words or a line here or there? On the other hand, when compiled all together, the evidence does seem pretty daunting.
But if there’s one single thing that can be made abundantly clear from all of this, it’s that dudes on the internet still have a raging boner for wanting to take Amy Schumer down a notch.
