Ricky Gervais bullied me, claims fellow comedian

Robin Ince, the comedian, has claimed that he was bullied by Ricky Gervais so much that it triggered a “stress rash”.

The performer, known for co-presenting the Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4, toured with Gervais before the pair fell out.

Ince has claimed that, looking back, he now feels he was bullied by Gervais, whose seemingly strange behaviour towards him made others uncomfortable.

Instances of the alleged behaviour were captured in behind-the-scenes material included in a 2004 DVD of Gervais’s Politics tour with Ince.

While it is not clear whether the footage is what Ince is referring to in his allegations, the clips show Gervais apparently irritating Ince with loud noises, songs, surprises and requests to perform tasks for his amusement.

Speaking  on The Starting Line podcast about their relationship, Ince said: “I look back now, and I think it is bullying, really it is.”

Ince said that he forgot how “weird” the behaviour was, and its strangeness was only made apparent when people outside their friendship witnessed Gervais’s actions.

He added: “People who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked. I am not saying it is a traumatic experience, but after two weeks I came out in red lumps that my doctor said were a stress rash. I think my hair is coming out in clumps.”

He said: “I would go through it, but people who knew me did not like the way that relationship worked.”

During one incident, when Gervais was publicly reading out a diary of Ince’s invented daily actions, MacKenzie Crook, star of The Office, intervened to ask him to stop because he was uncomfortable with it, according to Ince.

In video outtakes from their shared tour in 2004, Ince describes himself as a “human stress ball” used by Gervais.

In extras on the DVD for the Politics tour, Gervais is seen squealing at Ince, attempting to jump out and surprise him, prodding his face, tying him up, and singing to him while filming on a small video camera.

He later described members of the tour joining in with Gervais’s antics, comparing them to the out-of-control boys in the novel Lord of the Flies.

The filmed performance of Gervais’s Politics show used in the DVD opens with him making jokes at the expense of Ash Atalla, a producer who uses a wheelchair, which Atalla later said made him “uncomfortable”.

Speaking on the podcast, Ince was asked about his relationship with Gervais, which he said had been broken off.

The pair had been friends since the early 2000s, and Ince said they remained on good terms until a 2022 transgender row.

Gervais had delivered several jokes in his international tours which were critical of gender ideology, the belief that gender identity is decided by personal self-identified, rather than biology.

Ince criticised this in a 2022 essay on his website, in which he complained that Gervais was becoming a figure of Right-wing admiration.

He wrote: “Anti-trans punchlines seem to have become highly profitable and it ignores the dehumanising effect on a swathe of already marginalised people.

“I think Ricky believes it is just him being a “naughty boy”. I believe it makes him a pin-up and role model for the alt-Right (which is sadly just the mainstream right nowadays) and, whether he likes it or not, a useful ally in the culture war.

“I know he is not a supporter of alt-Right ideology, but I see his words used as gifs and memes in support of such ideology.”.

In his July podcast interview, Ince said he had spoken to Gervais only a week before he wrote the piece, but added he had not spoken to his friend since.

Representatives for Gervais were contacted for comment.