Jimmy Kimmel under fire from Padma Lakshmi and others for his comments about Louis CK's comeback and for calling comedy "very democratic"

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"If we get into the business of sanitizing every comedian and doing a thorough background check before they walk through the door, it’s going to be a very empty stage," Kimmel said when asked about Louis CK's comeback in a Hollywood Reporter interview announcing Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club in Las Vegas. "I think people tend to focus on the one or two people who walk out of a situation like that. Ultimately, the audience decides whether someone is welcomed back." Kimmel also laughed off the idea that comedy clubs should be a "safe space." Padma Lakshmi was among many on Twitter who criticized Kimmel's comments, tweeting: "Love you @jimmykimmel but the comedy community can also evolve their culture so that a known abuser who sexually humiliated women & silenced them for decades isn't welcomed back w/ open arms by @ComedyCellarUSA. I know a lot of standups who are NOT ok with sharing a bill with him. A 'background check' isn't really necessary for someone who openly admitted to masturbating in front of/on the phone to female colleagues for decades. We could just, as a culture and an NYC comedy community say, 'Actually f**k that.'" Kimmel was also criticized for saying, in response to a question about female comedians, that "comedy is very democratic. The people who are great, rise to the top; the people who are good, rise to the middle; and the people who aren’t good, don’t make it." As NPR critic Linda Holmes tweeted in response: "First of all, it's incredibly naive at this point to believe in absolute meritocracy in any endeavor, but to blow off the influences of any kind of discrimination in comedy is ludicrous. Second of all: Right in this same piece, they're talking about CK being given a spot on stage. A spot many people would kill for. Giving him that spot is a specific choice made by a specific person or people. That doesn't just *happen*. There are people who would give him that spot -- people who think his comedy is funny -- and people who don't. The idea that it's like the hot air balloon in The Good Place and you walk near a stage and it turns red or green? That's fake. I hate this depersonalization of the ways that people become famous, get opportunities to remain famous, and get opportunities to recover from stumbles. Those are all choices. It's not an algorithm." William Hughes added that Kimmel's "inner Adam Carolla emerged" in the interview, saying his "declaration against safe spaces is still a pretty f*cked-up thing to hear from a guy who is about to start actively employing people, especially since he just spent his last two responses first deflecting the idea that a club has a responsibility to make sure its employees won’t, say, take their d*ck out in front of other performers backstage, and then refuted any responsibility for making sure his club’s line-up isn’t a lazy parade of shitty-but-funny men. It is, in other words, both a continuation of the comedy club status quo, and a major bummer, especially since Kimmel has positioned himself in recent years as a voice for at least some angles of progressivism, ostensibly far removed from his old 'Girls jumping on trampolines' origins."