After Father Ted creator Graham Linehan was arrested at Heathrow Airport over a series of X posts, what exactly did he write?
The Irish writer, 56 – behind major comedies such as The IT Crowd – was met by several armed police officers as he exited his American Airlines flight from Arizona to London.
Following his arrest ‘on suspicion of inciting violence’, he was taken to hospital due to high blood pressure (over 200) over the stress of the situation, he claimed on his blog.
In a statement sent to Metro, the Metropolitan Police confirmed: ‘On Monday, 1 September at 13:00hrs officers arrested a man at Heathrow Airport after he arrived on an inbound American Airlines flight,’ adding that he has ‘now been bailed pending further investigation.
Linehan has regularly expressed his anti-trans views in recent years, which has resulted in his shows being axed from various events and venues, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He is vocal about his views on the Elon Musk-owned X (he was previously suspended from Twitter in 2020 before having his account restored), with the majority of his timeline criticising the trans rights movement.
In a lengthy blog post, he complained he was ‘arrested at an airport like a terrorist… all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers’.
The TV writer also accused the UK of becoming ‘hostile to freedom of speech [and] hostile to women.’
What did Graham Linehan’s X posts say?
In his Substack post titled ‘I just got arrested – again’, Linehan shared the three posts he believes led to his arrest.
All three were posted over two days earlier this year to his 611k followers.
On April 19, he posted a picture of a trans rights rally with the caption: ‘A photo you can smell’.
In a follow-up post, he added: ‘I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.’
The next day on April 20, he wrote: ‘If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.’
This is run-of-the-mill rhetoric on his X account, whether through reposts or his own words.
In the last week alone, he called trans women ‘violent men’ and claimed ’trans activism gives scummy men the opportunity to unleash any misogyny they want on uppity women’.
In response to one post saying you’ll be arrested for criticising mass migration, he said ‘same with trans ideology’.
X owner Musk responded to Linehan’s arrest by sharing a post from podcaster Riley Gaines, which called the UK a ‘police state’.
He said: ‘The UK is a police state that prioritizes abusers, pedophiles, minorities, and migrants at the expense of everyone else. And you can’t call it out because free speech is gone, free expression is punished, and comedy is effectively illegal.’
Musk reposted the message with a bullseye emoji.
Elsewhere, JK Rowling also showed her support for Linehan on X, writing: ‘What the f*** has the UK become? This is totalitarianism. Utterly deplorable.’
Asked about the arrest, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said: ‘The prime minister and the home secretary have been clear about where their priorities for crime and policing are, and that’s tackling anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, street crime, as well as reducing serious violent crimes like knife crime and violence against women’.
When questioned if Starmer agreed with Rowling’s comment that the UK had become a ‘totalitarian’ state, they said: ‘No’.
Meanwhile, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick called it ‘ridiculous and a complete waste of police time’.
What backlash has Graham Linehan faced before?
This is not the first time Linehan has run into trouble over his X posts.
In 2020, he was permanently suspended after ‘repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation’.
At the time, he had tweeted: ‘Men aren’t women tho’ after the Women’s Institute wished their transgender members a happy Pride.
In 2018, he was issued a warning by West Yorkshire police after entering a Twitter row with transgender activist Stephanie Hayden after Hayden reported him for using ‘he’ pronouns and deadnaming her (using the name she had before transition).
The same year, he was called out for comparing trans activism to Nazism.
His sustained commentary has led to professional repercussions as well, and he has not worked on a TV show in several years.
In 2023, he published his memoir Tough Crowd where he spoke about his early comedy hits all the way to his life now, which he has dedicated to debating trans rights – including the collapse of his marriage.
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