{"id":115925,"date":"2025-11-03T17:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115925\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T17:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:23:11","slug":"ricky-gervais-issues-fresh-statement-after-blasting-cowardly-powers-that-be-for-drinks-ad-ban-in-censorship-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115925\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricky Gervais issues fresh statement after blasting &#8216;cowardly powers that be&#8217; for drinks ad ban in censorship rant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ricky Gervais has returned to social media for the first time since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gbnews.com\/celebrity\/ricky-gervais-advert-ban-dutch-barn-vodka-video-rant\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">lambasting the &#8220;powers that be&#8221; that have continually banned his drink adverts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The award-winning comic took to X over the weekend, where he unleashed an expletive-laden rant against those putting a stop to Dutch Barn billboards being erected in London. <\/p>\n<p>The comedian, who is well-known for his provocative humour, regularly shares his banned adverts with his fans on social media, with many of them involving rather contentious jokes.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, Mr Gervais attempted to have one billboard used on the London Underground which encouraged visitors not to forget their &#8220;stab vests&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"c02b5\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"7c5a8c239217a857e7ca6da7f4a0f78a\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%203000%201688'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ricky-gervais.jpg\" width=\"3000\" height=\"1688\" alt=\"Ricky Gervais\"\/>Ricky Gervais is no stranger to controversy with his humour  | <\/p>\n<p>NETFLIX<\/p>\n<p>In another supposedly banned ad, Mr Gervais urged travellers to &#8220;enjoy life&#8221; because they would be &#8220;dead soon&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Both ads and several others were allegedly rejected by the advertising bodies that grant permissions on TfL [Transport for London], which resulted in Mr Gervais sharing a two-minute-long video ridiculing the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>After the video went viral, with over a million views in a matter of hours, Mr Gervais returned to X to react to the overwhelming support.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thanks for watching my shows, coming to my gigs, &amp; buying my vodka,&#8221; Mr Gervais penned alongside a snap of a bottle of Dutch Barn vodka and a donkey, given the company&#8217;s fundraising alliance with Save the Donkeys. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"097eb\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"d34de78f3f7f0de4a6769f1f7d7f1692\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20592%20855'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ricky-gervais.png\" width=\"592\" height=\"855\" alt=\"Ricky Gervais\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ricky Gervais called those behind the ban &#8216;cowardly f***ing c***s&#8217;<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p> X<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thanks for watching my shows, coming to my gigs, &amp; buying my vodka. And thanks even more for supporting all the animal welfare stuff I bother you with. You are lovely people. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xaY4IgKT7x\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/xaY4IgKT7x<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rickygervais\/status\/1985092713348538613?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 2, 2025<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>He continued: &#8220;And thanks even more for supporting all the animal welfare stuff I bother you with. You are lovely people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His latest social media post was a lot more reserved than the initial rant, which hit headlines across the globe.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am f***ing sick and tired of the powers that be banning my f***ing billboards and adverts for Dutch Barn. Sometimes there&#8217;s just nothing wrong with them,&#8221; the Derek star said on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>He continued: &#8220;One that was meant for the tube station, just had me having a drink, and it just said, &#8216;One day, you&#8217;ll be underground for good.&#8217; That was it. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They went, &#8216;No, can&#8217;t have that, because it might make people think, because life&#8217;s short, we should drink to excess.&#8217; Who&#8217;s f***ing thinking that? Oh, my God. Cowardly, f***ing c***s.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As he sniggered, Mr Gervais asked: &#8220;Do you think it&#8217;s my attitude?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He went on: &#8220;Oh, but you can&#8217;t win, because, well, you&#8217;re not allowed to say alcohol&#8217;s good for you, it does this, you feel confident, or it makes you feel attractive, which is fine. I went the other way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was one advert, I was reading from my laptop, from government websites, just saying about all the dangers of alcohol. They went, &#8216;No, we don&#8217;t don&#8217;t like that.&#8217; Do you know why? Because they don&#8217;t like the truth, either, because that puts off other advertisers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"0d603\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"34bf6dcff327bf29fe3fa1a7ee55c890\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%204960%203307'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762190591_495_ricky-gervais.jpg\" width=\"4960\" height=\"3307\" alt=\"Ricky Gervais\"\/>Ricky Gervais is not happy with the &#8216;powers that be&#8217; over his advert ban | PA<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;F*** me, honestly. So this is what we&#8217;re gonna do, f*** &#8217;em, okay? I&#8217;m gonna sell directly to you. Go to the website, sign up for our mailing list as well, and you can win a year&#8217;s supply of Dutch Barn.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Also, we save donkeys. So save donkeys, f*** censors, Dutch Barn,&#8221; The Office star signed off.<\/p>\n<p>Since his outburst, TfL has addressed the claims that it was the organisation that banned the Dutch Barn campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to Metro, a spokesperson said: &#8220;These adverts were never referred to TfL or their advertising partners for consideration. Alternative creatives for Dutch Barn have been accepted and are running on our network.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ricky Gervais has returned to social media for the first time since lambasting the &#8220;powers that be&#8221; that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,3623,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-115925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}