Once a relatively unknown comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe has attracted a firestorm of attention and controversy in recent days, following a divisive appearance at a Donald Trump rally in New York City.
The insult comedian and frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience took aim at a broad range of people while taking to the stage at the Madison Square Garden rally. In between offensive jokes directed at Jewish people, Palestinians and African Americans, the comment that received the most attention came at the expense of Puerto Rico.
“I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean,” Hinchcliffe told crowds at the rally, “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
The reaction was swift and widespread, with multiple celebrities, politicians, and Puerto Rican citizens condemning the comment. Naturally, Hinchcliffe’s targeted racial jokes have raised questions about his own ethnicity.
Tony Hinchcliffe was born and raised in Ohio
Tony Hinchcliffe is a white American citizen who was born and raised in Ohio, in the town of Youngstown. Both of Hinchcliffe’s parents, Michael and Joy, are white, but details around their broader roots and ancestry are not yet known. Hinchcliffe has said in the past that he was raised in a “rough, tough neighborhood,” and claimed that his parents had “dabbled in organized crime,” given the ties between Youngstown and the Mafia.
Tony Hinchcliffe has made racially insensitive comments in the past
While it has attracted the most attention, Hinchcliffe’s swipe at Puerto Rico during his Trump rally speech wasn’t the only racially charged joke he made. Elsewhere during his appearance, the “comic” leaned into insensitive and tired stereotypes about multiple races and ethnicities, including comments about African Americans and watermelons, antisemitic tropes about Jewish people and money, and vulgar references to immigrants.
This isn’t the first time he’s ‘punched down’ with racial insults. During a stand-up comedy show in 2021, Hinchcliffe came under fire for mocking fellow comedian and Asian American Peng Dang, whom Hinchcliffe hurled racial slurs at during his set.
Hinchcliffe was recorded mocking Asian people’s accents and again feeding into racist cultural stereotypes, and footage of the set went viral on social media. Hinchcliffe was subsequently dropped by his agency, WME, and was removed from a string of scheduled shows with Rogan.
Hinchcliffe’s more recent comments at the Trump rally have been widely criticized. One social media user saying the comedian was “punching down and relying on racism to do rage bait bits.” Another person shared a graphic which read, “if you are laughing at people who are hurting, it’s not satire, it’s bullying.”
