‘Disgraceful’: Miriam Margolyes unleashes over Barry Humphries in ABC TV interview

Barry Humphries’ longtime friend Miriam Margolyes has weighed in on his late-life controversy in a furious appearance on the ABC.

Amid the glowing tributes for comedy legend Barry Humphries over the past 48 hours, there have been voices of dissent – those who’ve pointed out the late star’s problematic views later in life.

But a longtime friend of Humphries’, actress Miriam Margolyes, launched a furious defence in a live TV interview on the ABC, calling his critics “disgraceful” and saying she is “outraged” by the backlash he received for his controversial opinions.

In recent years Humphries, who became a worldwide star in drag as the hilarious character Dame Edna Everage, sparked a string of controversies with his views about transgender people.

Humphries made repeated controversial comments about the transgender community in his later years. Picture: Claudio Raschella

In 2018, he described being transgender as “a fashion,” and in a 2016 interview he declared that those who undergo gender reassignment surgery are “mutilated men”, while also dubbing transgender former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner a “publicity-seeking ratbag”.

In 2019, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival made world headlines when it announced it would no longer name the festival’s top award the “Barry,” in Humphries’ honour. The festival confirmed that this was largely due to his repeated public outbursts against the transgender community.

Comedian Hannah Gadsby, who won the Barry in 2017, spoke out against the man it was named after as she accepted the award.

“I don’t agree with a lot of the things Barry Humphries has said recently … It is not something I will walk past. With full respect, I would like to accept this award just for me,” she announced onstage.

And she used even stronger language in a tweet posted in 2018, and which has recirculated online since Humphries’ death on Saturday.

Hannah Gadsby called Humphries an ‘irrelevant dick biscuit of the highest order.’ Picture: Damian Shaw

“Barry Humphries loves those who hold power, hates vulnerable minorities and has completely lost the ability to read the room. That's not a comedian, that's an irrelevant, inhumane dick biscuit of the highest order,” she wrote.

Speaking on the ABC on Sunday, Humphries’ longtime friend Miriam Margolyes revealed that he had been hurt by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival effectively “cancelling” him.

“I don’t think he was properly appreciated by Australia, and I don’t think he was properly treated, particularly by the Melbourne [International Comedy] Festival, who cancelled him, rather late in life,” she began.

Miriam Margolyes told the ABC she was ‘outraged’ by the criticisms of her late friend.

“How dare they. He had more talent in his little finger than they had in their whole bodies, all of them. I’m outraged by it, and I want to speak up now, to support him.”

Margolyes, who had known Humphries since she was a teenager, said she was able to separate the art from the artist, and encouraged others to do the same.

“It’s not about transgender. This was an artist, a great artist. A hugely funny, talented, witty satirist and observer of the human condition. He was acerbic, and he was often quite nasty. But he was a genius, and sometimes you have to accept that,” she said.

“I’m lucky that I knew him for so long, and I’m furious at the way he was treated in Australia, I think it’s disgraceful. I didn’t like his politics, I really didn’t. But I revere the talent of the man, and if people can’t see that, they need something shoved up their bum. I’m not saying he was right in his politics – I told him to his face that he was wrong. But he was the greatest comic who ever lived.”

Humphries died in hospital on Saturday aged 89, following complications from a recent hip injury. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Spender, and four children. They are reportedly currently in talks about Humphries receiving a state funeral.