The show must go on. Comedian Ari Shaffir, who came under fire after a controversial tweet about Kobe Bryant just hours after he was killed along with eight others in a helicopter crash last month, still followed through on a recent standup special despite it being canceled. It seems that Shaffir donned an alias, and performed that night under the name ‘Myron Lefkowitz.’
While Shaffir’s Twitter account is now locked, a screenshot of a tweet of his promoting the standup show surfaced on Reddit.
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“If you had plane tickets, hotels, or were just stoked for a fun night of standup, you should check out a comic named Myron Lefkowitz,” read Shaffir’s tweet. “He’s AS good as me,” he added along with several winking emojis in case the whole thing was too subtle for anyone to pick up on.
The show was held at The Skirball Center in New York City, though originally it would have been taped as part of a standup special titled Ari Shaffir: Jew. The venue released a statement indicating that the production company, Rotten Science, withdrew from the project in the wake of the fallout.
Another Reddit thread called the show “f-ing hilarious” and referred to Shaffir himself as “a scholar and a gentleman.
“He even took the time to stand there and meet/take photos with every person who attended,” the Reddit user wrote.
There’s been tremendous blowback since Shaffir’s remark about Bryant, including some faced by The New York Comedy Club, which had to cancel a number of shows — including Shaffir’s — after they received an onslaught of threatening phone calls referring to the joke.
The original tweet was a video of Shaffir commenting on the death of Bryant.
“Kobe Bryant died 23 years too late today,” Shaffir said in the clip. “He got away with rape because all the Hollywood liberals who attack comedy enjoy rooting for the Lakers more than they dislike rape. Big ups to the hero who forgot to gas up his chopper. I hate the Lakers. What a great day!”
Two days after the tweet, Shaffir released an apology on Instagram, where he said the joke was a reaction to the outpouring of love and support a celebrity receives when passing.
“Every time a celebrity dies, I post some vile s— about them,” Shaffir wrote. “I’ve been doing it for years. I like destroying gods.”
Though he clarified later in the lengthy note that he doesn’t “hate any of these people.”
