Comedian Martin Petit sharply responds to recent statements by Gad Elmaleh who denied having plagiarized from Quebec comedians, while admitting to having “taken” jokes from Americans.
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“Compulsive liars forget their first lie. In 2017, he said it was not theft, but tributes. Today, he changes his version again,” Martin Petit told Sophie Durocher on QUB radio at 99.5 FM Montreal.
The Quebec comedian contradicts the version of Gad Elmaleh who claimed to have never stolen Quebec material. “I saw him in an interview saying that he was coming to see our shows at the Campus Café. He was in the room when I was doing exactly this material,” he maintains.
A common practice in France?
According to Martin Petit, Gad Elmaleh is not the only French comedian to have appropriated Quebec material.
“Roland Magdane did 10 minutes of jokes from Pierre Légaré. There were French people who came to the festival and who took advantage of the distance of an ocean to steal material from Quebecers,” he declared.
A tarnished reputation
Martin Petit believes that these revelations have already cost Gad Elmaleh dearly: “In the United States, this is unacceptable. If you copy someone, you’re done in the business. “It won’t go back,” he maintains.
“It’s going to stick with him for the rest of his stand-up life. Our dream is that people laugh in front of us when we make jokes, but not behind our backs,” says Martin Petit, who however refuses to take Elmaleh to court.
Gad Elmaleh will perform at the Bell Center on December 11.
*This text, generated with the help of artificial intelligence, was reviewed and validated by our team based on an interview carried out at QUB.
