I want to warn kids of the dangers
An encounter with a catfish online almost cost comedian Joel Dommett his burgeoning career...
HE’D been working on his stand-up for years, he’d just been asked to do one of the biggest prime time television shows that exists but for a second, comedian Joel Dommett was hesitant. He was caught up in a blackmail situation with a mysterious woman called Staci whom he’d met on Twitter. They’d been chatting and he agreed to have ‘Skype sex’ but it turned out that Staci wasn’t a real person. In fact it was all a catfish and the perpetrators had taken images and footage of Joel naked which they now said they were going to release on the internet and to the press if he didn’t pay up.
But, unlike so many other victims of the same crime, after being terrified that this could destroy his burgeoning stand up career, Dommett saw a chink in the blackmailer’s armour.
What if he turned the tables so there was nothing left to blackmail about? What if he got in first and told everyone what had happened. And so the comedian did exactly that.
‘It was horrible at the time,’ he says, still shifting a little uncomfortably as we talk of what happened. ‘I figured out in my brain it was going to happen — it was going to come out. I knew when I was signed up for I’m A Celebrity that it would come out because the amount of interest around that show is phenomenal and when you are in the jungle you have no way of defending yourself essentially.
‘So it was my decision before I went to the jungle to make a documentary and a stand-up show about it all so no-one could surprise me. It took me a while but then it was the obvious decision because then they’ve got nothing on you. You’ve either got the embarrassment of them releasing it or just being honest about it and if anyone asks you saying,’Well, look I have a show about it’.’
Dommett knows he was one of the fortunate ones caught by a catfish.
‘Luckily I am not a person who would immediately lose their job because of what happened — like a teacher or something like that,’ he says. ‘And I am in a privileged position as a comedian I can talk about those things. I can warn other people now.’
THERE was, of course, the tragic case of Tyrone teenager Ronan Hughes who took his own life after being tricked into sending explicit photos of himself through social media three years ago.
And there have also been a number of similar cases Dommett has heard of too, which is why he’s happy he took the initiative to speak of it.
‘It has happened a lot,’ he says. ‘There were four kids [in England] within a couple of months who did the same thing and then took their own lives after being threatened with the images being put online and shown round their schools.
‘So if I can do anything to warn people that this is a thing that exists, I will. I think the problem is people don’t understand that this happens.
‘When someone is showing you attention online you would be thinking, ‘This is great, this is amazing, this person is so lovely.’ It wouldn’t even occur to you that this might not be a real person. It certainly didn’t occur to me.
‘And if I can do comedy about it and warn people that this is a thing that happens then that’s good.’
In fact, many people who have suffered at the hands of these blackmailers have turned to Dommett for support since he spoke of his own experiences.
‘I have had loads of people messaging me to say they had gone through the same thing and that it was really great that I would laugh about it and make light of it,’ he says.
‘It made them feel better about their situation. Hopefully I have helped people out a little bit but also helped warn them of the situations too. There’s nothing wrong with what I did at the end of the day. I have done nothing wrong and that is the key thing — you are made to feel like a victim when you have done nothing wrong. And if you can be strong enough to laugh at it, then that’s great. I think it’s way better that way.’
It was a big risk to take for someone who had spent years honing his stand-up skills, working his way up the comedy circuit, particularly as he had ditched a relatively successful acting career to do so.
‘I was obsessed with stand-up comedy it and loved watching it but I generally didn’t know that it was something you could do,’ Dommett says.
‘I had no plan and I was floating from thing to thing. I was doing a bit of acting but I didn’t really enjoy it. I was very lucky because I was getting a lot of work to do then but I didn’t really like it.
‘I think that’s maybe why I was getting through auditions because I was thinking ‘I hate this’ and they were going, ‘Oh he’s so edgy’.
‘Then I went to America for a while. I was staying with my friend in LA for a month and I didn’t have enough money to hire a car. If you know LA, you need a car to go anywhere so the only thing I could walk to was this comedy club down the road from the house. So I used to just go there all the time.
‘I went literally every night for about three weeks until they started letting me in for free. I was this weird kid who just kept turning up basically.
‘And then I went one night and it was an open mic night and I realsed everyone there was really new and that was how it worked. So I went back the next week and did it.
Afterwards I was walking down Sunset Boulevard in, I suppose, a really clichéd fashion saying, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ And so far I’ve stuck to it.’
And stand-up, Dommett says, felt a lot more rewarding to him.
‘There is more of a meritocracy, and a ladder to move up,’ he says. ‘The more effort you put in, the more you get out of it. I was one of those kids who was never any good at anything and I have always had to work really hard to get anywhere.’
And work he did, doing sometimes two and three gigs a night to get his name known and sharpen his skills in front of those comedy club audiences.
‘I was always known as the guy who does three gigs a night when I was starting out,’ he says. ‘I got a bike so
I could get from gig to gig quicker. I would just try to gig as much as I possibly could — I think I did 311 gigs in the first year — and then you are constantly learning how to get better, writing as much as you can and that way you make the slow rise out of the club circuit.’
He was doing the same gig circuit as other breakthrough names like Josh Widdicome, James Acaster, Rob Beckett and Tom Rosenthal who he describes as a great bunch.
But his love of Ireland is obvious when he talks about his upcoming shows at the Vodafone Galway Comedy Carnival which sees a host of big names take over the Marble City from October 23 to 29.
In fact, Dommett regularly travelled from London to Ireland to see one of his heroes — Tommy Tiernan. ‘I love Tommy he has always been my favourite,’ he says.
‘Every time I meet him I become like a blubbering wreck, I love his shows. I used to get a plane over to Vicar Street to watch his shows and then fly back.
‘It is always fascinating to see him in his home environment. He is my favourite storyteller and has inspired a lot of my shows.
‘I think he is still so sharp and so good.
‘A lot of people when they have been doing it as long as he has start to lose their edge but he is still on top of his game which is wonderful to watch.
‘That’s what brilliant about our career — you never feel comfortable. Just when you feel you are getting there and you are really confident that’s when you have the worst gig of your life.’ Dommett is soon to marry model Hannah Cooper and has managed to put the catfishing episode behind him.
The wedding is in the process of being planned, just a small ceremony abroad for 30 close family and friends.
‘I didn’t learn from my experiences and we met online,’ he says, laughing.
‘We met on Instagram and started chatting. Hannah is a model so she is in the business. She works loads and I work loads and yet somehow we manage to see each other loads too.
‘We are planning the wedding, it will be really small as we both spend our entire lives performing to people so at the wedding we just want to be with our families, which is probably the thing we don’t do enough of.
‘We want to go abroad with them and have a nice couple of days and then come back. It will be pretty low key.’
Charming and self-effacing, it’s easy to see why Dommett is a hit with audiences everywhere.
But, he says, if times ever get rough again, he’ll find solace in the stand-up stage.
‘The nice thing is there’s always comedy to do,’ he says. ‘Any time I’ve had a tough time or been through a break up, I’ve just gone to do comedy.
‘It is like a best friend I have had for ten years I can tell anything to.
‘It will fully judge me — it is like a really judgemental friend but it’s great therapy.’
O The Galway Comedy Carnival takes place at various venues from October 23 to 29. For details and tickets see vodafonecomedycarnival.ie