Stephen Fry is lucky that he has left Twitter because there is a social media storm brewing over his latest interview in which he discusses child abuse victims and says they can have “some” of his sympathy.
The QI star was criticising what he considers to be the depletion of free speech as people begin to avoid “trigger words” and try to create “safe space” to avoid controversy.
In an interview with Dave Rubin on the Rubin Report in the U.S., Fry was asked for his opinion on what the interviewer described as “the regressive left, coming after language and free speech,” and whether he thought that it was becoming a problem in the UK.
Fry said: “We fear that it’s going to happen more and more because America leads and Britain follows in all kinds of ways.
“I think it started to happen in Britain with the attempted removal of statues of people who are considered unlikable – who were once beloved – and have become in a very 1984 way, ‘unpersons’.”
Fry then blasted the “deep infantilism” in today’s society as he said that people need to grow up and become more mature.
“In terms of how they think, they can’t bear complexity,” he said.
“The ideas that things aren’t easy to understand. They want to be told, or they want to be able to decide and say, this is good, and this is bad, and anything that conflicts with that is not to be borne.”
Referring to how culture has changed, Fry explained how he thought people were becoming too sensitive.
“There are many great plays which contain rapes, and the word rape now is even considered a rape. They’re terrible things and they have to be thought about, clearly, but if you say you can’t watch this play, you can’t watch Titus Andronicus, you can’t read it in an English class, or you can’t watch Macbeth because it’s got children being killed in it, it might trigger something when you were young that upset you once, because uncle touched you in a nasty place, well I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s a great shame and we’re all very sorry that your uncle touched you in that nasty place – you get some of my sympathy – but your self pity gets none of my sympathy.”
Fry also added: “Self pity is the ugliest emotion in humanity. Get rid of it, because no one’s going to like you if you feel sorry for yourself. The irony is we’ll feel sorry for you, if you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Grow up.”
His comments have drawn heavy criticism on social media, with some furiously blasting The Hobbit actor as “dangerous”.
“Genuinely shocked that Stephen Fry would say this,” a shocked fan wrote.
While another wrote: “Stephen Fry painfully shows that intelligence and wisdom are two very different things with his comments about abuse victims”.
Another Twitter user suggested that critics should watch the interview, rather than just read the words for context, as they wrote: “That Stephen Fry quote looks worse out of context. He does have a point about freedom of speech. Complaining/reply is fine, censorship isn’t.”
"my heart just literally sunk reading this :( :( used to admire stephen fry so much wtf (sic)," one Twitter user wrote, while sharing an extract from his interview.
"This is such a dangerous and damaging attitude. Stephen Fry needs to be quiet," another added.
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