By Jacob Thorburn For Daily Mail
- British comedian John Cleese in row with fellow comics over slave reparations
- Monty Python icon had been at South by Southwest public event in Texas, USA
- But he landed himself in hot water after joking about France and Italy owing Brits slave reparations for the Roman Empire and the Norman invasion of 1066
- His microphone was eventually taken off him by American comic Dulcé Sloan
Comedy legend John Cleese had his microphone confiscated at the South by Southwest festival during a comedic discussion in which he suggested Italy and France owed historic reparations for enslaving Brits.
The Monty Python icon, 82, was riffing with other comics in front of the crowd in Texas when he talked about the ‘competition’ between cultures over who has been more oppressed by colonisations throughout history.
Pointing to world history being ‘a history of crime’, he added: ‘It’s a history of people who were stronger beating up people who were weaker and it’s always been that. It’s deeply, deeply distasteful.
