US comedian Daniel Tosh has apologised for making rape jokes and threatening a woman in the audience.
The 37-year-old was widely criticised for his performance on Friday night at Los Angeles comedy club, The Laugh Factory, the Guardian reports.
A woman who attended the show was reportedly abused when she interrupted Tosh’s set by saying that "rape jokes are never funny".
"After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, 'Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…’'," the woman wrote on her friend's blog.
She said the comments left her feeling "stunned" and "humiliated" and she quickly left the venue.
"I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place," she wrote, urging readers to spread her comments.
Yesterday, Tosh issued an apology on Twitter.
"All the out of context misquotes aside, I'd like to sincerely apologize," he posted.
However, not long after he tweeted again, saying "the point I was making before I was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them".
While Tosh has said sorry for his comments, fellow comedians have leapt to his defence.
New York stand-up comedian Alex Edelman said that while rape is a very serious topic, comedians should be allowed to say "almost" whatever they want.
"I think a comedian should be allowed to say almost whatever he wants and that the audience should be able to manifest their dislike in the form of not laughing at something if they find it offensive," he told the Guardian.
A number of other comedians have taken to Twitter to support Tosh, including Louis CK and Dane Cook.
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