Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe has declared he will not apologize for his infamous Puerto Rico ‘garbage’ joke made at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden last month.
The ‘Kill Tony’ host also addressed fallout from the joke on his podcast Tuesday, where he held court in Austin, Texas, with Australian comic James McCann and Estonian standout Ari Matti.
Before the show began, an unusually solemn Hinchcliffe took the stage.
Over the course of two minutes, he spoke on a scandal some had said was going to cost Donald Trump the election, and unfavorable reactions from stars like Aubrey Plaza and Jennifer that led him to tell the audience: ‘I am currently under attack.’
Speaking with an unmistakable air of sarcasm, he made one other serious assertion – that he will be ‘apologiz[ing] to absolutely nobody’ – eliciting a round of applause from the crowd.
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Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe on Monday defiantly declared he will not be apologizing for his Puerto Rico ‘garbage’ joke at Madison Square Garden last month – leading to a round of applause
The ‘Kill Tony’ host also addressed fallout from the joke on his podcast, after earning the public’s wrath by equating the US territory to a ‘floating island of garbage’
‘Last night I gave a speech, I don’t know if you heard about this,’ Hinchcliffe, 40, began – already being tongue-in-cheek.
‘It was a speech about free speech, believe it or not – I am currently under attack.’
The speech grew less serious from there, with the comic openly declaring, ‘I am the news.
‘I referenced Puerto Rico, which currently has a landfill problem in which all of their landfills are filled to the brim,’ the popular podcaster who frequently appears alongside personalities like Shane Gillis continued.
‘I am the only person who knew about this, unfortunately.
‘With that said, I just want to say that I love Puerto Ricans, they’re very smart people – they’re smart, they’re street smart, they’re smart enough to know when they’re being used as political fodder,’ he said, again pivoting to a more earnest tone.
‘Right now that is happening.’
That’s when he offered his anti-apology – telling those in attendance, ‘I apologize to absolutely nobody.’
Before the show began, an unusually solemn Hinchcliffe took the stage to address the controversy, before getting into a sarcastic speech that saw him circumvent an apology
‘Not to the Puerto Ricans, not to the whites, not to the blacks, not to the Palestinians, not to the Jews, and not to my own mother, who I made fun of during the set,’ he continued, seemingly coming into stride.
‘Nobody clipped that – no headlines about me making fun of my own mother,’ he added, to some laughs from the live audience.
‘Perhaps that venue at that time wasn’t the best fucking place to do this set at,’ he went on to admit.
‘But in any matter, to the mainstream media and to anybody trying to slander me online: That’s what I do, and that’s never going to change.’
The rant scored big with those in attendance, and Hinchcliffe proceeded to assume his usual seat behind the hosting desk.
Sat beside him were McCann and Matti, both of whom have been in the midst of a recent rush of success after being more or less discovered on Hinchcliffe’s comedy podcast.
When all was said and done, he took his usual seat to a round of uproarious applause, after painting his critics as politically motivated hypocrites
The jokes then resumed as usual, with the podcaster welcoming guest panelists like Australian comedian James McCann, who has been in the midst of some success because of Hinchcliffe’s show that offers a platform to unknown comedians
The show has been known to poke fun at politicians on both sides of the aisle, with Gillis famously appearing in costume – and character – as Trump, sensa 138 perhaps spurring the president-elect to call on Hinchcliffe for his high-profile rally.
The rest, as any amount of reports seen over the past several weeks will tell you, is history – with Hinchcliffe offering up the soundbite of the century when he equated the US territory to a ‘floating island of garbage’.
The off-color remark spawned almost-immediate backlash, and saw Trump’s usually defiant team distance themselves from the comedian.
‘This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,’ a Trump senior advisor said at the time, as celebs like Plaza, Lopez and Bad Bunny also spoke out – all to slam Hinchcliffe as a racist.
‘I just wanted to very quickly respond to the racist joke that was made at that Trump rally about Puerto Rico, where most of my family is from,’ Plaza said at the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards late last month.
‘Thankfully, my sweet abuelita wasn’t here to hear that disgusting remark.
‘If she was alive today, I think she would say, ‘Tony Hinchcliffe, go fuck yourself,” the Parks and Rec star continued, before offering the following signoff: ‘And yes, the Wall Street Journal can quote me on that.’
The joke made last month earned the wrath of Puerto Rican-Americans like Aubrey Plaza, who used her platform at the the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards late last month to call the comedian a racist
Hinchcliffe had remained relatively silent since – though a few hours before his podcast started streaming, he took to social media to finally address it. He did so with the above retweet calling attention to Trump’s win in a county with the highest percentage of Puerto Rican voters
Hinchcliffe had remained relatively silent since – though a few hours before his podcast started streaming, he took to social media to finally address it.
He did so with a retweet of a DailyMail.com article that discussed how Trump had managed to win a specific county in Florida – one that has the highest percentage of Puerto Rican voters in the entire US.
The post has since been viewed more than 40,000 times, as the fallout from the joke continues.
The comedian, however, does not seem too unbothered – sharing a story on Instagram advertising how ‘The next annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association will be on Saturday April 26, 2025′, seemingly looking for his next spot.
The event has yet to announce a host.