LONDON – British comedian, actor and animal rights activist Ricky Gervais took on bull fighting in a passionate live rant on his Facebook page on Saturday.
Gervais hit back at a newspaper that he said dubbed him "Sicky Gervais" and wrote that he "gets his kicks from watching videos of bulls killing people" by delivering a five minute rant explaining exactly why he thinks bull fighting is wrong – and giving his opinion on the people that take part in it.
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));My face live on Facebook livePosted by Ricky Gervais on Saturday, August 15, 2015
"People will go and see it and say, 'well, it's traditional'. So was slavery," says Gervais in the video. "So was fucking burning witches at the stake. So was child sacrifice. We've moved on. If something's terrible, you don't justify it by going: 'well, it is terrible but we've done it for ages'... well it's about fucking time you stopped then!"
"We've moved on, haven't we? I mean surely progress, at its core, is society maximising compassion and minimising suffering?"
"So, yeah... if you're going to fight a bull – I'd rather you didn't, the bull would rather you didn't – but I want the bull to defend itself."
So far the video has been shared over 4,000 times, and has receive an overwhelmingly positive response in the comments.
Gervais is an avid animal rights activist and regularly tweets about bull fighting.
A matador being killed by a bull is not the tragic bit. Torturing the bull for fun in the first place is the tragic bit.— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) August 14, 2015
Just for the record, a bull killing a matador who chose to try to torture the poor animal, isn't murder. It's self defence. Case dismissed.— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) August 14, 2015
Neither I nor any bull wants you to fight it. But if you insist I hope it defends itself. Fuck anyone who tortures an animal for fun.— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) August 17, 2015