Jack Black Cancels Tenacious D Tour After Kyle Gass Jokes About Donald Trump Shooting, Says He Was 'Blindsided' By Comment
Comedy band Tenacious D, a duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, have canceled their current tour and are postponing future creative endeavors after Gass made a joke about the attempt on Donald Trump's life last weekend.
At a gig in Sydney, Australia last Sunday, Gass was receiving a birthday gift as part of the show. When asked to "make a wish," Gass responded, "Don't miss next time," a reference to Trump's shooter grazing the former President's ear in the attempted assassination.
This led to a whirlwind chain reaction of events, including Australian Senator Ralph Babet of the right-wing United Australia Party to call for Tenacious D's deportation and Black posting a grave note on Instagram condemning Gass' comment.
Gass himself posted a similarly grave note walking back what he said, calling it "inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake."
Many on social media seemed to roll their eyes at the outsized reaction to Gass's off-the-cuff remark, while Black's apology seemed cowardly to others. Compared to Gass, Black is a much more well-known celebrity, and many interpreted Black's apology as throwing Gass under the bus to maintain his brand.
As of now, the future of Tenacious D remains uncertain. The remaining leg of Tenacious D's Australia tour has been postponed, as well as five dates in the American midwest in October.
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Sir Snakeboat
honestly, it's amazing how many people are saying "jack black shouldn't have thrown away what he and gass had because of a silly joke" when everyone here knows they would say absolute jack shit if the "silly joke" was about some minority.
honestly, just say the quiet part out loud and stop insulting everyone's intelligence already.
Gouf Troop
It's really sad how much respect I have lost for Jack Black this past year.
toonbat
On the one side, any day's a good day to make fun of Trump, and that goes double if you're a comedian AND a rock star. Hell, you're practically required to.
On the other hand… a) you know who the shooter DIDN'T miss? Some random guy who by all accounts didn't deserve to get shot, and whose family is probably not in the mood for a quip like that. And b) when you're on your personal Twitter or Facebook account, you speak for yourself. When you're on stage, you speak for your band and your team. You might wanna at least have the courtesy to discuss things with them first before pulling a stunt like this.
NoBuddy
What pussies. Fair enough its to save their careers. But unless the opposition to Trump harden up and start swinging, nothing will save their nation.
Jill
I'm gald we're getting to the point that this gets heavily criticized. I still remember Ted Nugent not even
trying to hide in humor his 'hot takes' on stage.
Kenetic Kups
Oh no how dare people treat others as they treat them
Soxar
those tweets crying about "disingenuous backlash" are so disingenuous themselves it hurts, they BOTH retracted it for the wellbeing of BOTH of their careers. Jack has more stuff on his plate sure but the tenacious d are still a duo and they'd both lose from the perceived bad actions of either one.
The real "issue" here is people being caught blindsighted by how the past like 9 years of orange man bad and freely wishing him death have to come to an abrupt stop cause someone actually tried to kill him, but that's just politics and yeah, being disingenuous for the sake of being seen as a good person.
Like of course his opponents would at least have done a little happy dance if the bullet had hit, but they can't say that cause it's common sense to not wish death on others, let alone publicly. Even if you'd be happy and/or be better off if it happened.
Lord DIO
And people wonder why I hate politics.
Red123
What a retard.
SwipeWire
Which one? Jack Black or Kyle Gass?
however
Yes.
Richo Vee
Yes what?
sofacady
Actually, apparently they are together again