Sketchy Things About Amy Schumer Everyone Ignores

Amy Schumer is everywhere, and it seems like the funny lady can do no wrong. Right? Well, not quite. Despite her television and box office success and endless praise from the press, there's a sketchy side to her famous sketch comedy.

When Schumer landed her breakout set at Comedy Central's roast of Charlie Sheen in 2012, she unleashed a brutal joke on Jackass star Steve-O about the death of his friend and co-star, Ryan Dunn, in a drunk driving accident. "I truly am—no joke—sorry for the loss of your friend Ryan Dunn," Schumer said on the dais. "I know you must have been thinking it could've been me. And I know we were all thinking, 'Why wasn't it?'" When called out on what many regarded as an insensitive remark, Schumer shrugged it off and refused to back down.

Steve-O said the joke was no big deal, but his fans erupted. He discussed the debacle, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, on The Big J Show at KRSQ Hot 101.9. Steve-O claimed Schumer's camp called to express remorse and ask for his help soothing the hate mail. Steve-O obliged. "Hey everybody, it was a roast, you know, where people say mean things to each other on purpose. That silly little whore was just doing her job."

Schumer insisted she had no regrets, telling Laughspin, "I did ask that his fans stop with the threats of ending my life. But I did not apologize for telling that joke. I don't see the hypocrisy. I'd like to continue being a comic and alive...But I absolutely, from the bottom of my heart, continue to not give a sh*t about this. I wish him the best luck in his comedy career."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRe2Rs7LomY

Fast forward to the summer of 2015. Some racially charged material from Schumer was called into question by The Guardian while she was promoting her then-upcoming film, Trainwreck. Schumer offered up a halfhearted apology on Twitter, writing, "I used to do a lot of short dumb jokes like this. I played a dumb white girl onstage. I still do sometimes. Once I realized I had more eyes and ears on me and had an influence I stopped telling jokes like that onstage...I am evolving as an artist. I am taking responsibility and hope I haven't hurt anyone. I apologize [if] I did."

The "sorry you were offended" tone wasn't lost on anyone with Schumer's history. To comedy fans, it read as selling out. To social justice warriors, it read as selling out, too, but in a different way.

Schumer revealed her sense of entitlement in November 2015 when she was caught playing the "Do you know who I am?" card with someone who, well, didn't know who she was. Page Six reports that the comedienne refused to check into the Upper West Side Equinox gym, telling staff, "I'm famous!" A source told Page Six, "She felt entitled to just walk in. She didn't want to show her key fob and wanted to be able to go in and not be questioned."

It was a shortsighted move for Schumer: the very security methods that irritate her so much also keep her safe from creeps or paparazzi who might try to follow her to a workout.

When Glamour magazine included Amy Schumer in their 2016 "Chic at Any Size" issue alongside plus-size stars Melissa McCarthy, Adele, and Ashley Graham, she expressed her dissatisfaction on Instagram, writing, "I think there's nothing wrong with being plus size. Beautiful healthy women. Plus size is considered size 16 in America. I go between a size 6 and an 8. @glamourmag put me in their plus size only issue without asking or letting me know and it doesn't feel right to me. Young girls seeing my body type thinking that is plus size? What are your thoughts? Mine are not cool glamour not glamourous [sic]."

However, the year prior, Schumer proudly announced at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, "I'm like, 160 pounds and can catch a d*** whenever I want."

Ashley Graham called her out on her hypocrisy in Cosmopolitan, sassing, "I can see both sides, but Amy talks about being a big girl in the industry. You thrive on being a big girl, but when you're grouped in with us, you're not happy about it? That, to me, felt like a double standard." Mic drop!

In early November 2015, Schumer came under fire for ripping off an audience who paid good money to see her do stand-up in Maine. According to the New York Daily News, Schumer said she performed 47 minutes instead of an hour because of a scheduling mishap, but some attendees claimed she performed for less than 35 minutes and seemed to phone in the performance. When called out on the incident, Schumer dubbed it a "rookie mistake." Those crowds are still waiting for their refunds.

At the height of the 2016 Presidential Election, Schumer did a stand-up gig in Tampa, Fla. during which she abruptly halted her show at about the halfway point when audience members started booing her over some remarks she made about then-candidate Donald Trump. According to the Tampa Bay Times (via Time), Schumer called Trump an "orange, sexual-assaulting, fake- college-starting monster," and invited a supporter of his onstage to "explain their enthusiasm for Trump."

The detour into politics did not go over well with around 200 audience members who got up and left the show. Bryon Infinger was one of them, and he told the Times, "I don't want to hear that. We wanted to have a good night without distractions with the politics." Granted, comedians are known for pushing the envelope, particularly with politics, and Schumer is entitled to her opinions, but she never expressed any remorse to the people who paid good money to see her comedy only to have their night hijacked by a political diatribe.

In a subsequent show at Madison Square Garden, Schumer then mocked those who left the Tampa show by reading from an open letter she wrote. "And Tampa, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that he was an orange, sexual-assaulting, fake-college-starting monster," she said, repeating "Shouldn't have said that. I will never again say that he is an orange, sexual-assaulting, fake-college-starting monster!" Yeah! You really stuck it to those people who literally put food on your plate!

Schumer has gushed about following around actor Bradley Cooper and screaming his name on red carpets, but if the gender roles were reversed, that wouldn't be considered cute. It would be creepy. In 2015, she detailed her intimate fantasies about Cooper, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, President Barack Obama, and many more in GQ's 2015 Men of the Year issue. Again, if a guy did the same about, say, Glamour's Women of the Year, that behavior would be viewed as sexist and horrifying, because it is.

In a speech she gave at Gloria Awards and Gala in 2014, Schumer details what at first glance seems like a humorous albeit cringeworthy recollection of a bad sexual experience in college. She tells the story of how her crush "Matt" drunk-dials her early in the morning, at which point she goes to his place and they bumble through awful, mostly failed attempts at sex. The problem with the story is that Schumer admits that "Matt" repeatedly falls asleep throughout the encounter. She even describes his inebriated state of mind as "He's there, but not really." Though she clearly sets "Matt" up as the instigator of the sexual encounter, it could be interpreted that his ability to consent is seriously impaired.

Sharp critics of Schumer have suggested that the encounter is even tantamount to a sex crime, and while that's obviously a legal matter we're not equipped to weigh in on here, again, it's another case of how bad this would look had their roles been reversed.

Schumer's star vehicle, Trainwreck (2015), which she wrote, was promoted as being unapologetically feminist. But is it really? Schumer's character has lots of consensual, casual sex, sure, but then she falls into the same tired rom-com tropes as every man and woman before her. She just needed to find the right guy. A truly feminist and groundbreaking movie may have featured a character who realizes she is perfectly fine on her own and chooses to ignore the predictable, monogamist conclusion.

"While Schumer is undoubtedly funny and talented," wrote The Daily Dot, "a lot of her work seems like the same old bulls**t being sold to us in glossy feminist packaging. Of course, it's wonderful to see a woman succeeding in mainstream comedy, but that shouldn't put her beyond criticism."

While she was in Hawaii shooting Snatched, Schumer, her co-stars and crew also put together a tribute for Beyonce's "Formation" music video. The tribute featured Schumer in the Beyonce role, as well as cameos by Goldie Hawn, Joan Cusack, Wanda Sykes and more. The main criticism of the video, as articulated by Ana Defillo at The Frisky, was that Schumer and co. basically appropriated a song that was intended as a statement of black female empowerment, and co-opted it for a bunch of rich, white ladies. Many on Twitter seemed to agree, utilizing the hashtag #AmySchumerGottaGoParty to illustrate their disdain.

Schumer, once again on the defensive, penned a Medium post explaining that not only did she have Beyonce and Jay Z's approval to shoot the tribute, she wasn't intending to parody or "detract any of the meaning from [Beyonce's] video." But then she ends the post with the following statement: "You have every right to feel however you feel about the video and me but I want you to know I'm not going anywhere. Use whatever hashtag you like. My mission is to continue to work as hard as I can to empower women and make them laugh and feel better and I won't let anything stop me."

According to Defillo, this came off as another "sorry, not sorry" moment, as well as missed the entire point of the criticism, which she laid out in the following blunt language: "A lot of things are about all women, and that's good! But somethings are, actually, just about Black women. You can appreciate those things for sure, but literally remaking them so that they feature you as the centerpiece...it's not a good look. It's maybe the worst look." Ouch.

Much of Schumer's standup material, as well as much of the fodder on Inside Amy Schumer and in Trainwreck, is about her own promiscuity, but when a 17-year-old film critic posted a photo poking fun at that very same subject, Schumer got her knickers in a knot.

"Spent the night with @amyschumer. Certainly not the first guy to write that," tweeted teen Jackson Murphy, who ran into Schumer at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Schumer saw that tweet and fired back: "I get it. Cause I'm a whore? Glad I took a photo with you. Hi to your dad." When the teen apologized and deleted the tweet after being harassed by Schumer's fans, she feigned graciousness, tweeting, "That's really okay honey. I just remember thinking you and your dad were sweet and it was a bummer to read that." How pious.

In January 2016, several comedians accused Schumer of lifting their material. Kathleen Madigan said one of her jokes was worked into a sketch on Inside Amy Schumer; Pescatelli accused Schumer of swiping one of her bits about marriage and plugging it into the Trainwreck script; Schumer's own stand-up allegedly contained a word-for-word joke first told by Wendy Liebman.

Those are just the comics who had the nerve to speak up. Fan-made videos showed more side-by-side comparisons of Schumer's material matching other comics, including Patrice O'Neal, John Mulaney, and Marc Maron, as well as similar sketches from Inside Amy Schumer appearing previosly on Mad TV.

Madigan and Liebman later backtracked on their accusations, and Pescatelli followed suit. Schumer chalked the criticism up to jealousy. "People build people up and then like to rip them down when they experience some success. I think people get upset by success," she said (via Page Six). "I don't even take it personally."

Schumer took several jabs at Jenny McCarthy on Inside Amy Schumer, and she revealed some of the reasons why on the Opie with Jim Norton show in 2016. Schumer described McCarthy as a bully who doesn't support women. "This past season of the TV show, Season 3, [McCarthy] really wasn't nice to my friend Rachel [Feinstein]. So I was just like, 'Let's just go after Jenny McCarthy all season.' She hates me, obviously...I'm sure she can be charming when it behooves her, but be nice to other women, especially other women in this disgusting f**king business, that's all I can say."

This McCarthy hate may have another root cause: comedian Tammy Pescatelli once called into McCarthy's SiriusXM radio show to discuss Schumer's alleged joke-stealing. "Underground, this has been being said for a while," Pescatelli said, and when she spoke up, "people were going, 'Yes, thank God you said something,'" Pescatelli added, "If I told you some of the big-name comedians that called me. Literally, if I was trying to start something, as she's accused me of in the press, I could really start it." McCarthy suggested Schumer take a lie detector test about the accusations.

It's easy to assume Schumer may have been highly motivated to utilize her own media platform to retaliate, but regardless, her girl-power, anti-bullying script seems hypocritical.

When a fan approached Schumer for a selfie while she was touring in Greenville, S.C., she got really mad about it. "This guy in front of his family just ran up next to me scared the s–t out of me. Put a camera in my face," Schumer wrote in an Instagram caption on a photo of the fan. "I asked him to stop and he said, 'No, it's America and we paid for you.' This was in front of his daughter. I was saying 'stop' and 'no.' Great message to your kid. Yes, legally you are allowed to take a picture of me. But I was asking you to stop and saying no. I will not take [pictures] with people anymore and it's because of this dude in Greenville."

However, the fan in question, Leslie Brewer, shared an Instagram video of the incident that contrasted starkly with Schumer's account, featuring a calm (not "scared") Schumer asking him to delete a photo. What's more, a source told Page Six, "She's always hated taking photos with fans, even before she had a TV show or a movie. She couldn't be bothered then, and she can't be bothered now."

After catching a lot of slack for her encounter with Brewer, Schumer toned down her rhetoric via Twitter. "I'll still take pictures with nice people if I chose to if Its [sic] a good time for that. But I don't owe you anything."