Perhaps Katie Hopkins’ audience is already fired up after fighting with the small group of protesters, brandishing signs and leaflets, outside the comedy club.
Or maybe, after years of following her – in the newspapers (before she was fired), on the radio (before she was fired), on Twitter (before she was banned), and, most recently, on YouTube – just They are excited to see it. He finally meets his heroine.
Either way, when he takes the stage at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green, east London, the crowd goes wild. Especially when he cries: ‘These are difficult times, my loves. This country is about to say, ‘Enough’, but you are not alone!’ Cheering, clapping, they shout: ‘We love you Katie!’
Many are simply happy to be here. Especially since other theaters have canceled Hopkins’ one-man shows after claiming he is spreading hate, racism and fascist bile.
‘They canceled it in King’s Lynn! Idiots! Just try to tell the truth,” says Julie, 62, from Bromley, Kent, sipping a giant white wine to my left. “Nothing is prohibited.”
Malcolm, a nice, quiet guy to my right, couldn’t agree more. ‘I like his way of approaching things. The way he is able to analyze all the madness and make sense of it,” he says. ‘Why are they protesting outside? She’s not racist, she’s just saying it for all of us. You should see it on YouTube. She’s brilliant.’
Katie Hopkins, former The Apprentice contestant, media personality and commentator, speaking at a debate against the motion: “This house would go vegan” at the Oxford Union
In 2020, Hopkins (pictured) was removed from Twitter for “violations of our hateful conduct policy,” although Elon Musk let her back when he bought the social media site.
It’s hard to imagine anyone not being aware of Katie Hopkins, 49, but in case her tireless publicity efforts haven’t reached you, she’s the annoying blonde from the third series of BBC TV’s The Apprentice in 2007. , who bowed out facing a final showdown with Lord Sugar, but then used the publicity to rebrand himself as a controversial hate figure.
Since then, after being fired from her job at the Met Office and photographed naked in a field having sex with another woman’s husband (who ended up being her own), she has offended many by telling tasteless jokes, such as about the death of TV presenter Kate. Derek Draper, Garraway’s husband, and insulting a nine-year-old autistic girl.
At times it seems as if Hopkins has been working from a list: immigrants, “heavy lesbians,” the trans community, Pakistanis, the physically disabled (whom she often refers to on her show as “spazzes”), anyone ugly or obese. As she tells us all at least twice: “I am the most forbidden woman in the world.” And it probably is. In 2018, she was arrested in South Africa for allegedly spreading racial hatred.
In 2020, she was removed from Twitter for “violations of our hateful conduct policy,” although Elon Musk let her return when he bought the social media site.
And in 2021, she was deported from Australia, after deliberately violating Covid lockdown rules.
He has compared African migrants crossing the Mediterranean to cockroaches and called for gunboats to be sent to deal with them. And, after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, he called for the “final solution”, which many consider a reference to the Holocaust.
Naturally, he has been in and out of court for defamation. After a row on Twitter, he had to pay food writer Jack Monroe £131,000 in damages and costs for causing “serious harm” to his reputation, and had to sell the family home in Devon. But that didn’t stop her. ‘It makes me freer to speak. Now they have nothing left to take,” he says. On behalf of what she calls “the voiceless majority,” like-minded people who “just want to be honest and free to think whatever they want.”
Katie Hopkins gestures while taking part in a debate at the Oxford Union in November last year.
He now has his own YouTube channel where he shares his opinions with thousands of subscribers.
So he tells jokes about how “red-headed babies are harder to love”, that the Israeli secret service Mossad is “totally epic”, along with a lot of unprintable stuff about Labor politicians, lesbians, “climate idiots”, slavery, immigrants and Angela Rayner. pubic hair.
And the crowd roars and shouts with laughter. Everyone follows her online and has traveled miles to be here. A woman flew from her home in Portugal.
“She’s our hero,” says a guy with a shaved head and a British flag T-shirt. “She always hits the nail on the head.”
But being a far-right political commentator was never supposed to be Hopkins’ path.
‘Growing up in Devon I wanted to be in the army. To fight for my country,’ he says. Through the University of Exeter’s sponsorship with the Intelligence Corps, he signed up for 35 years. But he did not reveal that he had epilepsy, which meant he often ended up in hospital.
During a parade in Sandhurst, she suffered a seizure and was discharged.
He moved to a financial job in New York. It was there that she stole from her first husband, who left her for his secretary the day after the birth of their second daughter.
He then appeared on The Apprentice and has since appeared on countless reality TV shows, written (and spoken) many inflammatory words, and upset a lot of people.
‘I like to think I’m still serving my country. Otherwise. “I am defending Britain.”
The crowd here loves it. Especially when you use the F or C word, which happens about every 30 seconds. I can only transmit a fraction as much of it cannot be printed.
His rant is shocking, which is a shame. Surprisingly, Hopkins has great comedic timing, a good relationship with her audience, and when she stays away from the hate, she’s very funny. She’s natural and warm (yes, really) as she interacts with the audience and jokes about the operation that cured her epilepsy and a traumatic moment with a loofah in the shower.
Katie Hopkins was photographed leaving Australia in 2021 after being deported for deliberately violating Covid lockdown rules.
But then, minutes later, the bile spills out with appalling comments about the Grenfell Tower fire – ‘sad, sad, burn, burn’ – and insults against campaigning former deputy postmaster Alan Bates.
Nobody goes out. Nobody says, ‘Too much!’ They laugh like gutters when she says she is good friends with Tommy Robinson (the former leader of the English Defense League, currently in custody) and talks about her support for the man jailed for harassing broadcaster Jeremy Vine and the councillor’s wife in prison for inciting racial hatred. the day three girls were killed in Southport.
God knows what motivates Hopkins. Maybe he really believes he is the messiah of the far right.
As the two-hour program draws to a close, his message picks up speed as he tells us that we are “family” and that the government is “trying to kill us with a thousand cuts.” ‘No matter what happens, you will always have me. “You are not alone and together we are stronger.”
And there is thunderous applause and a standing ovation.
Before another exhibition, the management of the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe, Suffolk, refused to cancel it, despite protests, saying: “If people don’t like it, they don’t have to come.” So it’s up to you.
But if jokes about the people of Pakistan, ‘Dead Derek’ and those who have been burned to death aren’t your thing, I’d say don’t go. Katie Hopkins won’t give two figs. All shows will be sold out anyway.