Comedian Arj Barker who ejected mother and baby from show: ‘I have nothing against babies’

Barker insists decision to ask her to leave was for audience, not himself

Comedian Arj Barker, whose decision to eject a woman and her “gurgling” infant during his live show sparked a debate in Australia, said his decision had nothing to do ‘with her being a mum’.

Barker was performing at the Melbourne Comedy Festival on Saturday when, in the middle of his hour-long gig, he asked the woman, Trish Faranda, to take her baby, Clara, outside because he felt that the infant was disrupting the show.

“It was really awkward for me to be honest,” he told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

“But in the theatre sound travels, you can hear the drop of a pin. And it doesn’t take much to distract an audience, when they’re watching a show. And I’ve worked on these jokes and there’s timing and there’s pauses, and it’s just not going to work with the baby, it’s just not going to work”.

Barker insists the decision to ask her to leave was for the audience, not himself.

“I made the decision not for myself, for the audience who wanted to see the show uninterrupted, for the jokes to work as they should. And also, I shouldn’t have been in that position, to be honest. Because the show is a 15+ show, it’s stated clearly on the website,” he added.

Arj Barker (Getty Images)

Faranda clarified to 3AW that Clara “wasn’t screaming”.

“She was just being a baby, she gurgled a little bit, she had a bit of a whinge … nothing loud”.

Some audience members, however, have disputed how loud the gurgling was.

“It wasn’t a little bit of gurgling, it was crying. I was on the second level up and I could hear it,” audience member Steven Adlard told The Guardian.

“Arj got distracted, he was trying to tell a joke, he quite politely stopped and said ‘Would you mind? Could you please leave?’ and she just sat there, and the baby settled down, and a few minutes later it started again.”

Faranda said she had started breastfeeding Clara to settle her, which Barker insists had nothing to do with his decision to ask her to leave.

“I have nothing against babies – number one, the breastfeeding thing is a non-issue, it should be inadmissible and I had no idea if she was breastfeeding or not because I was on a lit stage,” he told Nine News.

“All I could see was a woman likely holding a baby – the breastfeeding was never part of it. If it were the father, I would have acted the exact same way – it had to do with the baby making noise”.

“It was purely an audio issue, it had nothing to do with her being a mum – I have nothing against mums,” he added.

Comedian Arj Barker performs on stage during the 2009 All Points West Music & Arts Festival in 2009 (Getty Images)

The incident has sparked discussion online over whether it was unfair to a new mother trying to enjoy a night out or if it was bad manners to distract a performer.

“I have kids and there is always a time, a place for little children. This mother is so entitled it’s unbelievable,” a commenter wrote on the Facebook for Australian TV program A Current Affair that Faranda went on to explain what happened.

Faranda has said she wouldn’t go to one of Barker’s gigs again.

“And the sad bit is, I’ve been to lots of his shows before children, and you kind of lose yourself a bit when you have kids, and I was just trying to get back to something I enjoyed before I had kids,” she told 3AW.

Australian politician Ellen Sandell came to Faranda’s defence in a post on X, saying, “Women have a right to participate in society while breastfeeding”.

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival said, “Any interaction between performers and their audiences requires sensitivity and respect”.

“In our Festival managed venues, babes in arms are generally allowed but we do ask people to sit up the back with their child so they can quickly and easily leave if the baby gets noisy so as not to disturb the artist and other patrons,” the statement added.