Ricky Gervais Backtracks on 'Office' Criticisms, Uses C-Word

BBC

Ricky Gervais

Hours after Ricky Gervais wrote a blog entry criticizing The Office season finale, in which he also appeared, the British comedian took some flack online for insinuating that the U.S. version may have jumped the shark.

So Gervais took to his blog, again, to clear some things up, backtracking from his original comments about the NBC show.

“Sorry, who dissed The Office finale? I f---ing didn’t, that’s for sure,” Gervais — who co-created the original British series -- starts off, “I simply said it’s different to the original which I created and made with different ambitions.”

“What’s wrong with that?,” he asks.

Gervais then defends his original statements in the previous entry, where he said, “If you’re going to jump a shark, jump a big one.”

“The bit about it ‘jumping the shark’ and being like Chris Martin in Extras was meant to be a little self deprecating in-joke,” Gervais clarifies. “I myself, did a fun but pointless, over-hyped cameo in the episode too remember.”

But on an aging show like the American Office, in which the leader of the pack Steve Carell, departed before the season closer, it is only natural for eyes to be analyzing every move. (See Two and a Half Men’s most recent debacle.)

“The US version of The Office has probably made me ten times the money that the UK version did. I wouldn’t knock it. It’s still my show,” Gervais explains. “All I said was I do it for different reasons. That is simply what they call the truth. ... After all, every other c--- is.”

But perhaps Gervais has learned his lesson about voicing every thought that runs through his mind, be it the bad and the ugly. He ends by conceding: “Still, mustn’t grumble.”