Amy Schumer Accused of Stealing Jokes From Other Comedians

Over the past year, Comedy Central star Amy Schumer has skyrocketed into superstardom, from her work in her show Inside Amy Schumer to her big screen debut Trainwreck and even her friendship with Jennifer Lawrence. However, suddenly the comedienne's star has a shadow on it. Three other female comedians, Wendy Liebman, Kathleen Madigan and Tammy Pescatelli, are accusing her of stealing their jokes.

According to Refinery29, the three funny ladies took to Twitter last weekend (in a conversation that has since been deleted) to talk about their supposed experience with Schumer stealing their material and then using it on her show, her movie and even her HBO special Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo.

Later on, one person on Reddit opened a thread posting supposed evidence of Schumer's theft, featuring side-by-side comparisons of some of the comedienne's jokes and bits told by other people years before. Besides Pescatelli, Madigan and Liebman, other seemingly stolen bits shown are from Patrice O'Neal and a poster from It's Sunny in Philadelphia.

Amy Schumer is a Joke Thief from joe schmo on Vimeo.

In light of these accusations, Schumer appeared on Jim Norton's show on SiriusXM last Wednesday to deny the allegations, insisting she would never steal anyone else's jokes.

"I would never, ever do that, and I never have," Schumer told the host. "I have to come up with so much material for my TV show, this movie, stand-up. And I'm so careful. And none of these things had ever reached me. I will literally take a polygraph. And I just would never do that. That would be so stupid for me to do that."

Entertainment Weekly reports that it's not the first time she has faced this kind of criticism: when her HBO special first aired, it was pointed out that O'Neal had made similar jokes about sex positions as the ones she'd made. At the time, she took to Twitter to say that she wasn't familiar with that particular bit.