
A comedian has defended their controversial missing plane joke despite facing viral backlash.
About a year ago, Jocelyn Chia was doing the rounds online when her stand-up sketch about Malaysian planes caused outrage. The Singaporean, who lives in the US, was performing at a New York club when she referenced the missing Flight MH370.
On 8 March 2014, the flight was planned to make its journey from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China.
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However, it completely disappeared from air traffic control radars, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
To this day, itâs one of the biggest-ever aviation mysteries. And for many, Chiaâs joke seemed to go too far.
The stand-up joked that Malaysians hadnât visited Singapore for a while because their âairplanes cannot flyâ.

She then added: âWhat, Malaysian Airlines going missing not funny, huh?
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âSome jokes donât land.â
Chiaâs joke faced backlash not only from global media and social media users, but even from authorities, with Malaysian police going to Interpol so they could investigate her under the countryâs laws relating to insulting speech â which she found âridiculousâ.
Vivian Balakrishnan, Singaporeâs foreign minister added they were âappalled by her horrendous statementsâ and said they are âsorry for the offence and hurt caused to all Malaysiansâ.
But Chia has since defended it, making comparisons to other comedians using the events of 9/11 for their work.
She told the Mirror: âI think a lot of the Malaysian and Singaporean critics were initially biased by the comments they read about the joke before watching it. The reason why the joke works incredibly well in a live show is because I have the element of surprise on my side."
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Chia explained sheâd been performing the same sketch for a year and a half before it went viral and carried on âbecause it was one of my best jokesâ.
The comedian added that Malaysians trying to cancel her for it made her determined âto do it every single nightâ.
And going viral also meant a âboostâ to her career with her âbig world tourâ expanding to more cities and countries â although she will not perform in Malaysia anymore.
Chia says sheâs realised the general public doesnât see comedy âas an art formâ in the same way as the likes of films.
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"They accuse me of crossing the line and being heartless and insensitive; being a bad comedian or an amateur. The latter makes me laugh because it takes a certain level of skill to pull off a joke like the one I did," Chia said.
"As the saying goes, 'tragedy + time = comedy'. Jokes about tragedy are not uncommon in comedy."
Topics:Â Viral, MH370, World News, US News