Over the weekend, three female comedians accused Amy Schumer of stealing jokes for material ranging from her television show to her standup special Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo, and even her hit movie, Trainwreck. It began when Wendy Liebman wrote in a now-deleted tweet, “Between Amy Schumer doing 1 of my best jokes on her HBO special and this meme of my joke, I’m done with social media.”
According to Refinery29, comedian Chuck Martin responded:
There was, apparently, a back and forth between the comedians that has since been deleted. One of Schumer’s loudest critics in the thread was fellow comedian Tammy Pescatelli.
In a series of tweets, Pescatelli accused Schumer of stealing one of her jokes for Trainwreck. “What has always been amazing to me is that she purports to be a feminist and yet only steals from other female comedians. If we call her on,” Pescatelli tweeted. She continued: “...[on] it we are “jealous” or career shamed. Be successful. WE want you to do well, just do it will your own material. BTW she blocked me.” She continued tweeting ostensible jokes, comparing Schumer to Bill Cosby and her own plight to Martin Luther King.
On Wednesday, Schumer addressed the accusations on Twitter. “On my life, I have never and would never steal a joke,” she wrote. Schumer reiterated her innocence on an appearance on Sirius XM’s Jim Norton Advice Show. “Both Kathleen and Wendy know me and they don’t believe I would do that, I think this is Tammy trying to get something going,” Schumer said. She added, “I just would never do that. That would be so stupid for me to do that.”
Pescatelli appeared on Norton’s show today and said that she had gone too far. “I went too deep,” she told Norton, “It went too far, and for that, I’m super apologetic.” Pescatelli said that she originally thought a writer stole the joke but added, “it was probably parallel thinking, that does happen.”
In a separate appearance on Jenny McCarthy’s radio show, Pescatelli said that despite being vilified for coming forward, other comedians have reached out to thank her for speaking publicly.
Image via AP.