Katherine Ryan has spoken out once again about sexual misconduct in the comedy industry as she claimed one male comedian showed other cast mates intimate videos of himself having sex with women.
The Canadian comedian, 41, explained that the incident happened while backstage in the green room of a big show.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Nip Tuck podcast with hosts Ashley Stobart and Lauren Adamson the three women discussed the Me Too movement as Katherine opened up about being a woman in the industry.
While Katherine didn’t identify the comedian, she did state that he isn’t British.
She explained: ‘I’ve been in green rooms where very famous male comedians. One male comedian in particular... I will say it’s not British.
‘He was very famous, very rich, very powerful, and he was in a room on a big show. I was one of a few women on that bill, maybe three women.
Katherine Ryan has revealed how a ‘very famous, rich, powerful’ male comedian showed a younger female colleague videos of himself having sex
‘And there was a young female comedian who was starting out who was next to him, and he was with all the lads, showing pictures and videos on his phone that he had taken of himself having sex with women.
‘So, like, really intimate photos, intimate videos and he was showing them. His penis was in a lot of these videos.’
Revealing how the comedian came to Katherine for support she continued: ‘She felt very uncomfortable about that and then she came into my dressing room to be like, “Oh, I didn’t like him showing me that” and she’s about to go on stage.
‘She’s very new. I was even quite new at that time, but yeah, stuff like that and being a minority in that situation, which female comedians, especially when I was starting out, were always minorities.’
She added: ‘In every green room, every dressing room, there are things we can’t do that the boys can do.
‘We can’t take a night bus. We can’t sleep on the floor with like, four other comedians starting out a lot of times. We have children that we have to look after, and then we get fans who, like, could kill us.’
She told the hosts: ‘So, like, really intimate photos, intimate videos and he was showing them. H is penis was in a lot of these videos’
Revealing how the comedian came to Katherine for support she continued: ‘She felt very uncomfortable about that’
In January Katherine opened up about her ‘scary’ experiences with men in the early days of her television career.
Speaking to Good Housekeeping UK she recalled some encounters with male fans who tried to follow her home after gigs.
She said: ‘When I started doing television, male audience members could be weird with me.
‘I had this following of very strange lone-wolf men… Before I had a tour manager, they’d follow me on to the train and keep talking to me.
‘I was trying to be polite and create a boundary, but some of those interactions were scary.’
She also discussed calling out sexual predators in the world of comedy but said that she has been lucky with most of the shows she has worked on.
Katherine said: ‘No one has tried anything weird with me because I’m probably very scary.
‘I’m aware that by saying that I could be seen to be victim blaming, so I want to make it clear that I’m not saying someone else has received poor treatment because they’ve got ‘the wrong energy’.
‘I’ve been lucky, in part, I think, because of the guys I came up with – Joe Lycett, Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan are just really, really good guys.’
Fellow comedian Lucy Beaumont has also spoken out male predators in the industry as she confirmed in a 2023 interview that she had been targeted herself.
Fellow comedian Lucy Beaumont has also spoken out male predators in the industry as she confirmed in a 2023 interview that she had been targeted herself
She said she had suffered ‘quite a few incidences’ early on as she set out in the industry.
And confirming the ‘blacklist’ of alleged offenders, she said there were up to 15 men carrying out the appalling behaviour.
Lucy said when being asked if anything had held her back: ‘Predatory male behaviour. I’ve had quite a few incidences where if you’re in any other workforce you would go to HR, but there isn’t one. I think it’s just everywhere and it’s not talked about enough.
‘It upsets me when I hear about young female comics having the same experiences. I thought for a while it was the same five or six people – and now it’s not – I could name you 10 or 15 because of course people talk.’
She added during the interview on The Comedian’s Comedian Podcast : ‘Comedy has the biggest gossips ever so everybody knows – or if you don’t know the ones I know yet then you will do soon.
‘It attracts such interesting, passionate, raw, edgy, wounded people – but it also attracts predatory men who are really messed up and sexually have been repressed for years. And they get a bit of fame and display these behaviours.
‘It just gets covered up. Their agents know and the channels know and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. There’s been times when I’ve just wanted to go on Twitter and just let people know everyone that we talk about, but not allowed to say.’
