Comedian Arj Barker has made a peace offering to the nursing mum he asked to leave his show for being disruptive – but stands by his decision. The American stand-up performer sparked a backlash when he ejected mother-of-three Trish Faranda from his Melbourne Comedy Festival show on Saturday night. Ms Faranda claimed that she was humiliated and reduced to tears when she and seven-month-old daughter Clara were booted from the theatre. But his response is nothing what we’ve imagined.
She said Clara was babbling and ‘had a bit of a whinge’ before Ms Faranda gave her a feed. Barker then ordered Ms Faranda leave about 15 minutes into the gig because they were ‘disrupting his show’. Barker said on Tuesday that baby Clara should not have been at his over-15s show in the first place.
But he also apologised to Ms Faranda for the embarrassment caused and made a light-hearted attempt to make amends. ‘I hope you’re doing okay. I’m sorry that that was a difficult situation, and I would like to make peace,’ he told Sunrise on Tuesday. ‘I would like to meet up with her and have a serious discussion about selling the movie rights and go 50-50. ‘Also, to the beautiful baby who I have nothing against, I want to offer that little child a ticket to my show post-dated 2039.’ Barker admitted it was an unfortunate and tricky situation for everyone involved.
‘I’m not gonna hide because I want people to know the truth of what happened, at least from my perspective,’ he said. ‘Both myself and the woman were put in a position we shouldn’t have been in.’ Barker insists he has no issue with public nursing which he described as perfectly natural, and at the time he did not know that’s what she was doing. ‘I couldn’t see her well enough to know if she was nursing or not – that’s something I only heard about two days after the incident,’ he continued. ‘I want to make that really clear because it’s been mentioned so much I had, and if she was, I wouldn’t care.’
Barker acknowledged that the baby was not screaming but said that her ‘cute’ noises were distracting the audience. ‘It’s about the crowd enjoying an immersive experience of watching a comedy show with timing and pauses and getting drawn into the show,’ Barker explained. ‘As a performer, I have a right to ask a disruptive audience member to leave the show. ‘Unfortunately, it was a cute little baby at this time and nothing to do with the mum or the gender of the parent. ‘If it was a father, I would have said the exact same thing. ‘From where I’m standing on stage, I’m merely trying to create a nice environment to perform my show.’
Sources: Daily Mail