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Comedian Arj Barker reportedly kicked out a breastfeeding mother and her newborn baby from his show in Australia Saturday night, forcing a handful of furious attendees to walk out of the theater in solidarity.
Barker clashed with the mother at the Athenaeum Theater during his Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where the 7-month-old baby made a few gurgling sounds.
“I was sitting there and she gurgled a bit,” the mother, Trish Faranda, told 3AW Melbourne. “The equivalent if someone was coughing.”
Faranda claimed that Barker stopped and acknowledged the baby before he cracked a few jokes about the situation.
“At the end of this skit of a little baby in the room, he said I speak baby and she said “Take me outside.” At that point, I was like I don’t think he was joking about that,” she recalled.
The mother claimed her child made a “little noise” again, but was “just being a baby.”
Barker approached Trish for a second time due to the disturbance.
“I was actually breastfeeding when he came and stood in front of me and he was basically telling me to leave,’ Trish said. “People were laughing and I don’t think he was joking. So I said to him, do you actually want me to leave? And he said, “Yes I do.”
A group of “ten or 12 people” — including one man — walked out of the 863-seat auditorium over the “humiliated” mother’s departure.
The woman’s family member claimed on X that Barker said the pair were “ruining his train of thought.”
“Thanks to the countless women, and one grandfather, who left in protest. Atrocious. You’re in @cityofmelbourne at an International Comedy Festival. Have an ounce of respect,” the relative said.
“A woman has purchased a ticket, for a night out with her sister and friend, to laugh and enjoy herself and you badger her and encourage her to leave and get a refund.”
Faranda told newspaper The Age she didn’t face an issue when she brought her baby to see Australian comedian Dave Hughes.
Barker, dubbed “Australia’s favorite American comedian,” slammed theater staff for allowing the child into the show.
“The show is strictly age 15 plus as clearly stated on the ticket site. She had an infant with her. The baby was disrupting my performance,” Barker said in a statement.
“On behalf of the other 700 people who paid to see the gig, I politely told her the baby couldn’t stay. She thought I was kidding, which made the exchange a bit awkward,” Barker added. “I felt bad about the whole situation and stated this on the night more than once. I offered her a refund. Theatre staff should not have seated a baby in my audience in the first place.”
The tense exchange divided the internet over theater etiquette.
“I am livid at hearing this,” Australian politician Ellen Sandell said. “It’s hard enough for new mums to participate in society with all the barriers put in front of them – to be humiliated like this, for just trying to enjoy the comedy festival, is awful.”
However, critics faulted Trish for bringing the young child into the intimate setting.
“Ridiculous to take a small child to, show clearly stated age 15+. Very inconsiderate to every other person in the venue,” another person said.
“I’m a parent and I think he was right to ask her to leave after she failed to consider the other paying audience members,” one X user said. “Most comedy shows are not much more than an hour. Organize a babysitter or don’t go.”
With Post wires
