The Ben Mulroney Show - Canceled by the CBC? For a comedian, it's comedy gold!

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

GUEST: Brett Forte — comedian https://www.brettforte.com/ If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Must be 19-plus Ontario only. Play responsibly. Concerned about your gambling. Visit connectsonterio.com. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. I've told you that one of my great and most favorite jobs I ever had, summer jobs was working at the Just for Laughs comedy festival for three straight summers in Montreal. I got to be face to face with my idols.

I was in charge of waking up Dennis Leary before his gala. You don't want to wake up Dennis Leary from a slumber before his gala. That was my job. That was my job. Anyway, I have a real appreciation. I have a real admiration for what these people do. They are truth tellers. They are people who can bring up really uncomfortable topics

and make us laugh about them when nobody else can. And we are coming out of a period of cancel culture where people would get offended over a whole bunch of stuff. And what happens when the force of a comic and the force of a comic and the, force of the mob meet. Well, they meet on stage with our next guest. So please welcome Brett Forte to the show. Brett, welcome. Thank you for having me, brother. Yeah, so I saw your clip that you posted on social media and I sent it to my producer and intrepid over there did what he does. And now here we are talking. I want to play the clipping question and then we'll talk about it. So let's listen to

the story before the conversation. Band from the CBC. You have a some questions. I have some explaining to do. What did I say? Okay, good question. Um, my special got taken off CBC and it wasn't from a joke on the special. It wasn't from a joke I ever said on stage. It was my Instagram. They go combing through it. They find one video. I did some people watching one day. All I did was I got a video of a bunch of guys coming by on Harley Davidson motorcycles, except they're wearing turbans. So all I said was, uh, get a load of Patel's Angels. Yeah, I think the writing's pretty tight, right? It's not bad.

Right now, oddly, those guys were not the ones upset with the joke. They actually saw the video. They reached out to me. They went, bro, you got us good. Those guys were fine with the joke, but guess who was upset on their behalf? Guess who was upset on their behalf? The white people. White people ruin everything.

Brett, so take us back to the special itself. I know because I listen to a lot of comics. This is one of those mountains that you climb as a comic when you get your own special. So this probably meant a lot to you. Yeah, I actually just got just for laughs new faces and was on that trajectory. And then this all hit. And so how did you find out that you had been pulled, you'd been deplatformed? You don't find out.

You just are pulled off air within a. week of it airing and they never actually reached out to me until a few months down the road actually a CBC eye opener. Oh yeah. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that in a minute. So yeah, so they pulled you. They didn't, no investigation, no conversation.

Some, some, I'm assuming it was a white, white liberal woman took issue with your Instagram. And that's, that's all they needed. It's just a few emails nowadays, regardless of the joke. All it takes is a few emails for any. establishment, any network to just say, hey, this isn't worth. The juice ain't worth the squeeze. We're out. There's another comic that won't give us a headache and we'll book him. How long ago was this? That first one was like 2020. Yeah. See, that's what I thought, right? Like I have my own personal experience with cancel culture.

And it feels to me and tell me what you think of this analysis is that after George Floyd passed away, people who look like me were told that I am the embodiment of a problem that needs to be overcome in society. And millions of people that look like me were caught up in trying to do right. And so when somebody says, oh, see this guy over here who told that joke? He's another problem. Let's go get him. And the mob was ran deep and they were rider dies. But now in 2026, we got bills, we can't afford stake.

The world is on fire. And people are just trying to take care of themselves. So when somebody says that exact same thing in 2026, so let's go get that guy, it's not as big as of a mob. Yeah, the performative outrage, I call it, is still there for sure. And like a group called recently Diversity Thunder Bay, tried to put an end to my shows. Diversity Thunder Bay, by the way,

it consists of exactly three white people. So the performative outrage. No, hold on. Is that a joke or is that real? It's not a joke. I give you the receipts. I'll give you the photo. You can put it up. That's amazing.

Okay. And are you known as a controversial comic? Unfortunately, yes. Even though my next gigs coming up are for a woman's shelter and Alcoholics Anonymous and the anti-terrorism Task Force of Canada has booked me to do their corporate show.

I'm still seen because of these certain jokes. Brett, this is like the theater of the absurd. Like, it's crazy. You've got three white people who call themselves a diversity council. Yeah, this is. So I remember

I remember at the height of cancel culture, right? At the height of people with their phones being offended and trying to get, or hold people accountable. A lot of comics, weren't road testing their new material the way they used to. And Jerry Seinfeld for a period of time would not go on college campuses because there was such an aggressively political agenda

that anytime anyone felt offended, they would weaponize it. Have you found that your craft and the way you build out your material has changed? No, not at all. You always want to be more funny than shocking. So when you're walking the high wire on a bit that is a sensitive quote-unquote topic, you always want to make sure that it's slightly funnier than it is shocking. And that's my job. That's my profession.

I got to do that. I can't just be saying inflammatory things. So I have to be smart about the job. But that high-wire. Sort of like what they say, one of the reasons that late-night talk shows are going the way of the dodo bird is because they've gotten lazy. They're not being controversial, but they're just,

They're making people on the right the butt of every joke. Well, it's what gets the clicks on the internet now. If you can make it political or something racial, then people argue and arguing creates traction on the internet. So unfortunately, people have to sell tickets this way. The business model has changed. There's no clubs now like fostering the young kid going, I think this guy's got talent.

Let's help them. It's who can sell venues now. Who can make this money right now with their Instagram? So it's a rat race. to go get those clicks. And that is unfortunately how you get some of them. And then you're always going to receive, no one's going to, not everyone's going to love you.

Yeah. You have to be comfortable with love and hate. And actually when I worked in radio, before comedy, that's the one thing I took out of it, is create something that people love or hate, nothing in the middle. Joker, it's boring.

Brett, ultimately, yeah, you're going to get the hate. Ultimately, has this helped or hurt your career? It's hard to say because like I said, I was on that new faces trajectory and kind of was they were wrapping their arms around me and who knows what could have come of that. But I genuinely personally enjoy. I think being banned from the CBC is a better credit than being on it. And when they say that, bringing me up. And they go, most impressively, he's been banned from the CBC.

You literally see the people in the audience look left and right and go, oh, this is going to be good. Yeah. It says something. And then they watch the act and they go, this guy's making jokes about women's makeup. Like he's not even that bad. I've got to say, like, I'm shocked at the, the community of, like, the larger comic community and like I, the, the clubs and all of that have not been, it sounds like you're saying they haven't been there to have your back. Is that fair to say? Oh, that's another thing, man. Like, cancellation just doesn't come from the mob like you open this up with. The mob is just one group of people canceling yet, the keyboard warriors, the emailers, the Karens or whatever. you want to call them, which I'll argue they're more evolved now. That was five years ago. That's

Charmander. It's Charzar now. They're out of control. But that's one facet. Cancelation also comes from your fellow comedians. The minute they see you have a little hiccup like this, they'll do what you can. And I got a laundry list of comics who have done that to me. Really? Even the venues themselves will cancel the comedian because they don't want to book them, but for example, the head boss, like a Mark Breslin of Yuck Yuck Yucs, says, hey, I'm having this comment come through your club. They go, we don't want them. He goes, well, too bad.

You're having them. And I'm privy to a conversation, for example, Ben. Yes, sir. Yuck Yucs of Winnipeg, which they're franchise owned, right? So this isn't a Yuck Yuck Yucs problem across the board, but just in Winnipeg, where they canceled my show, they had to lie, first of all, to cancel it. They said, we don't want it because of content. emails we're getting. And then Mark Brezman goes, hey, too bad. Like, that's comedy.

Yeah. And then they go, well, they had to make up a lie and say that the venue, there was rocks thrown through the window with notes on them saying no Brett Forte or else. So they had to make up damage to the venue so that Mark would be like, okay, fine, for the safety of the staff will cancel it. It gets worse. Well, hold on. Hold that thought. Hold that thought, Brett, because we're going to take a break. I've got so many questions for you on the other side this, including, I'm going to ask you the question, so think about it. Is there any joke that could or should get you canceled that you've ever told? We'll talk about that when we come back. Some crimes are so shocking. They don't just make headlines. They forever change our society.

I'm Katie Ring, host of America's most infamous crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, release every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first time that something was wrong, to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. A 67-year-old grandfather fails to show up for a meeting with his son at a local tire shop, sparking a desperate search. And he wouldn't be the only victim.

I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Higgs. You might listen to a local. lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Season 8 drops April 21st, but you can hear the first story now one month early, only on Amazon music. I am continuing my conversation with Brett Forte, a comedian who told what was honestly a very funny joke on his Instagram, and a few people got upset, and next thing you know, the CBC, the most, you know, our national broadcaster, decided to drop this guy.

and drop his special that he'd worked so very hard on. Brett, first of all, let me just say, I'm really sorry that happened to you. But I don't understand a couple of questions about what we were just talking about. You know, I went to the Ben Bankish show at Yuck Yucs here in Toronto. He's the most controversial comic working. Why is it that some people are subjected to being canceled and others are impervious to it? It's funny you mentioned because earlier where I was leaving off with my last point about Yuck Yuc Yucs Winnipeg.

We both had issues with that venue. They lied to get me out. And then they think I was their opening weekend comedian. When they opened that club, they chose me first. And I had such a good relationship with them. And because of that, I'm privy to conversations. I hear them talking about Ben Bank is coming and how they don't want them there. But Mark Breslin says, too bad.

He sells tickets. You're going to have them. And their plan, and what they did was the owner of that local Winnipeg location, flew to his show in Ontario to record him saying something offside so that the club themselves could post the footage and cancel their own comedian in-house. I've never even told Ben this. He didn't need it. The guy's doing just fine without me. Ben Bankis doesn't know that. He doesn't know that.

They recorded him and then they recorded him and pulled him. and posted it so that they could then have a justification for canceling him on their own stage. Yeah, it didn't work because I'll do sell more tickets. Yeah, well, listen, I'll tell you, the story keeps

getting more absurd. And before I tell, before we jump into yours, I want to make a, we actually have a very similar situation here because when I first moved to Toronto and I was a first on television, there was a gay magazine in Toronto called Fab Magazine. And

they had a field day theorizing that I was gay and the proof that they had was that we had a standard poodle growing up. I was close to my mother and I like to tuck in my shirt or something like that. Whatever.

It is what it is. Like I worked in energy. Maybe a couple of hot tub parties. Yeah, if you are, whatever you know. But go on. Phelate one man and you're a poet. Two and you're a homosexual. Yeah. That's a, that's a line from um that that was cut from um awesome powers anyway and so then they reached out to me the editors reached out and said hey we'd like to put you on the cover and you can you could discuss these uh gay

rumors i was like you mean the gay rumors that you started i was like i don't know if this is journalism a hard pass and and now i i want to with that i want to get into your story because you're dropped by the cbc you're canceled by them and then you get an email from someone at the cbc tell us about this yeah just different department the cbcc footer, ironically named. And they want to do a similar story about cancel culture. And they say, hey, we came across you. You seem like a prominent comedian in the, in the industry. We'd love to hear your two cents on cancel culture. And I literally had to tell them, hey, guys, did you not look into this? Like, you are cancel culture. Yeah, you are. Exactly. Exactly. But, you know,

we, we contain multitudes, don't we? And we are, we are more. We are more. than one line on a resume. And you are, when I saw like the things you've worked on, I, most stand-up comics don't do this. You, you have a documentary. You went undercover to expose a fraudster who was posing as a Saudi princess. Yeah, that's right. Okay, explain this. Well, this is the thing, man. Like, people take jokes as statements. They see a very small fragment of the content I produce and then they make a judgment about my morality without realizing that some of the other work you do actually has tangible benefits to society. I like repair marriages sometimes. People come out to laugh for the first time this weekend since losing their

husband and you have this great moment with them and you're like, okay, this job is the jester is worth it. Even though every once in a while you get executed by the king by saying something a little offside, it's still worth it. And in this case, I use my skill set, you could say, to infiltrate. a fake Saudi Arabian scammer who tried to take the money of 45,000 Canadians and run away with it. And she had her operation in Toronto, Vancouver, and then she made the mistake of coming to my backyard in Calgary. And I committed to the bit, man. And I recorded everything. I wore a wire. I had spy glasses. I had the whole thing, man. How did you know, how did you know that she was a skisker?

damn artists. I mean, if 45,000 people were falling for it, what, what did you see that was different? She was hiding checks. She came to Calgary. She was a new player here. And she was on TikTok trying to hide checks around the city to drum up some attention for her social media. And one check was for $5 million. So it's like, hmm, okay. And then my friend reaches out, says, hey, I'd love to help you out with this content. It's not really produced properly. And she goes, yeah, that's perfect. Because I'm actually hiring a video team for a million dollars and I'm going to go on your lunch date and I'm going to put a tail on you and that's how it started and I sat in that parking lot for three hours and got the photos got license plates got everything in order so that when she inevitably tries

to screw us we'll have everything we need to screw her back I had no idea it was going to end with someone's home being lit on fire on Instagram live while I'm screen recording the whole thing. I had no idea that she had plans of 45,000 people at McMahon Stadium and a massive, a massive scam job. And so it really blossoms. It was nothing and then it became quite something. And it ended with you contributing to her arrest. Yeah, that's right. I turned it all, all in. And yeah, she's in prison right now as a result. She gets out soon. And let's just hope she sees the dock. comes after me and then we got part two. Brett, before we leave you,

if people want to learn more about you and all your work and how they can find you and how they can follow you and how they can buy tickets to your shows, where do they go? Brett Forte.com, nice and simple, man. Brett Forte on Instagram. And I know I'm in your neck of the woods in October at the Absolute Club.

I got a week there. I know where that is. Is that up on Young Street? Yeah. I know where that is. Last question, because I promise I would ask this. The joke that you told that got you canceled was flat out funny and it shouldn't have got you canceled. Have you ever told a joke that you thought to yourself, this one, this one could get me in trouble.

Yeah, dude, that's everything now because the walls, the jokes haven't moved. The walls have come in on you. Well, listen, this show, we always say this is all conversation, no cancellation. Whatever you say here will not get you canceled. So tell me that joke. Dude, it's my whole act. This is what I'm telling you. I have an N-word bit where I don't say the N-word, but I dance around it and I still

intelligent enough to pull it off. But even jokes like that to the point where, dude, I booked a gig. I'll tell you some 30 seconds, okay? I book a gig on Vancouver Island. The venue applies for a liquor license. The RCMP phone the venue go, what are you doing? Comedy show? Who?

No, we advise you don't have that guy. What? There was a file on you with the RCMP. Jesus, all right. Listen, notoriety. And then city council calls to go, hey, how much were you expecting to make on the bar? We can maybe have a donation to cover it. I tried to bribe him.

The venue goes, no. Third call, the mayor of Comak says, hey, I see your lease is coming to an end. It would be a real shame if it wasn't renewed. I lose the show because of like Italian mafia tactics on Vancouver Island. Brett Forte, thank you so much for being. here. I could have talked to you for an hour, my friend. All the best. I know your best days are ahead of you, my friend. Thank you, man. I'll see you in October. Yes, indeed. It's winter on global. Have you ever told a lie? Are you serious? It wasn't lying part of the job description of CIA?

On executive producer Dick Wolf and the team behind FBI. New partner. He can be a little by the book. Dude, not much used to me alive, but you're really no use to me dead. I never knew you cared. Two perspectives, one mission. You guys work in the open. We work in the shadows. Starring Tom Ellis and Nick Gelfis. Nice work partner. CIA, new series Mondays at 10 Eastern on Global. Stream on Stack TV.