Arj Barker addresses backlash over ejecting a breastfeeding mother from his stand-up show as he returns to stage for first time since furore

Arj Barker has addressed the backlash around him by removing a breastfeeding woman from his comedy show as he returned to the stage for the first time since the furor.

The American comedian, 49, sparked controversy when he asked mother-of-three Trish Faranda and her baby Clara to leave his show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival because he was being disruptive.

Amid the backlash, Arj stood by his actions and explained that his comedy show was aimed at people over 15 and that there shouldn’t have been a baby in the first place.

Now he’s poking fun at the online storm as he returned to the stage at The Comics Lounge Comedy Club in Melbourne for his first stand-up set since the incident.

Arj admitted the fuss had been ‘intense’ before, in an amusing moment, jokingly complaining that an audience member was disrupting his breathing.

“This whole thing has been a little intense,” he admitted, not shying away from addressing the elephant in the room.

The prankster then pretended to kick random audience members out of his show, picking people in the crowd to jokingly complain about.

‘I hear someone’s stomach rumbling. “I want you to know this is your final warning,” he said.

‘About twelve seats in the back is a gentleman in his mid-thirties. When you inhale, you hear a slight whistling sound through your nose. Go away.’

Arj further admitted that he has been hit with ‘hate messages’ amid the online comments, but also thanked his fans for their support.

“I need to get home because I still have about 2,400 unread emails in my hate mailbox, but also a lot of supportive emails,” he said. I’m grateful, I didn’t come here to change anyone’s mind.’

Arj, who is from San Francisco, also promised to continue touring Australia as he talked about how much he loves the country.

Earlier this week, Arj responded to the backlash over the ejection of breastfeeding mother Trish Faranda from his show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival last weekend.

Ms Faranda claimed she was humiliated and moved to tears when she and her seven-month-old daughter Clara were evicted from the theatre.

She claimed Clara ‘whined a bit’ before feeding her, with Arj asking her to leave about 15 minutes into the performance because they were ‘disrupting his show’.

Arj said baby Clara should not have been on the over-15s show in the first place, but also apologized to Ms Faranda for any embarrassment caused.

‘I hope you’re well. “I’m sorry this has been a difficult situation, and I would like to make peace,” he told Sunrise on Tuesday.

‘I would like to meet her and have a serious discussion about selling the film rights and a 50-50 policy.

‘I would also like to offer that little child a ticket to my show after 2039 to the beautiful baby that I have nothing against.’

“I’m not going to hide because I want people to know the truth about what happened, at least from my perspective,” he continued. ‘Both myself and the woman were put in a position wHe shouldn’t have been there.’

Arj insisted he has no problem with breastfeeding in public, which he described as completely natural, and said he didn’t know what she was doing at the time.

“I couldn’t see her well enough to know if she was breastfeeding or not – I didn’t find out until two days after the incident,” he continued.

“I want to make that very clear, because there’s been so much talk about me having that, and if I did, I wouldn’t care.”

He also acknowledged that the baby was not screaming, but that her “cute” noises were distracting the audience.

“It’s about the audience enjoying an immersive experience of watching a comedy show with timing and pauses and being drawn into the show,” he explained.

‘As a performer, I have the right to ask a disruptive audience member to leave the show.

‘Unfortunately at the time it was a cute little baby and it had nothing to do with the mother or the gender of the parent. If it was a father, I would have said the exact same thing.

“From where I’m standing on stage, I’m just trying to create a beautiful environment to perform my show.”

Amid the controversy, Australian prankster Ethan Marrell, better known as Ozzy Man Reviews, came to Arj’s defense this week.

The YouTube star, 38, stressed that Arj is a ‘top guy’ with no ‘ego’ and talked about how the star made him feel welcome on the comedy circuit in the mid-2000s.

He recalled how Arj once spoke to himself and other nervous new comedians before a big show to make sure his material didn’t overlap with theirs, and how he changed parts of his set so he “wasn’t stepping into their shoes ‘.

According to news.com.auArj shared: ‘[Arj] changed his material 30 minutes before the show, making sure not to step on the toes of the competing novice comics. Isn’t that incredibly beautiful?’

“My bottom line is… the guy has no ego, and I learned at a very young age how f***ing cool and nice that was,” he continued.

“He went out of his way to make sure he didn’t take all the glory as MC on a night that was likely to be unforgettable for many of us newbies.

“It may not seem like much, but this was a pretty big national league in the early 2000s, so I always appreciated and remembered his integrity.”

Ethan also addressed the controversy over the breastfeeding mother’s deportation, insisting that Arj should never have discussed it on stage in the first place.