Ricky Gervais: Trophy Hunters are ‘Vile and Worthless’

Ricky Gervais’s Twitter feud with Eye of the Hunter co-host Rebecca Francis continues to heat up.

The 53-year-old comedian responded to a statement Francis released to Hunting Life Friday, in which she accused Gervais of targeting females in the hunting industry.

“We need to stamp out this terrible sexism in the noble sport of trophy hunting,” Gervais tweeted. “The men & women that do it are EQUALLY vile & worthless.”

 

To recap, Gervais lambasted Francis on Twitter Monday after he saw a photograph of her lying next to a dead giraffe.

“What must’ve happened to you in your life to make you want to kill a beautiful animal & then lie next to it smiling?” he tweeted to his 7.5 million followers.

Francis began receiving death threats from thousands of people following Gervais’ post, which was shared more than 30,000 times on the social media site.

Francis stands by her life as a hunter. Her statement in full, via Independent, reads:

Ricky Gervais has used his power and influence to specifically target women in the hunting industry and has sparked thousands of people to call for my death, the death of my family and many other women who hunt.

This has evolved into an issue about the morality of threatening human lives over disagreeing with someone else’s beliefs. It shocks me that people who claim to be so loving and caring for animals can turn around and threaten to murder and rape my children.

I am proud to call myself a hunter. I am proud to be a woman in the hunting industry. I am proud to be a mother. I will never apologize for these things.

I repeat: I will never apologize for being a woman who hunts as I know that my passion for hunting and conversation is making a direct difference on the ground for wildlife.

Gervais has since been posting aggressively on Twitter, where he can also be seen retweeting graphic images of dead wildlife.