Bassem Raafat Muhammad Youssef is 49 years old and Egypt’s most famous comedian. He was born in Cairo, the country’s capital. Youssef is also a cardiologist by training and a TV presenter. He hosts the CBS program “El Bernameg”.
Presenter Piers Morgan even called for ‘seriousness’ from Bassem Youssef during his show
An excerpt from Bassem Youssef’s recent interview on the UK program “Piers Morgan Uncensored” has gone viral on social media. In the conversation, Youssef’s debauchery and irony stand out in his analysis of the conflict involving Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
When asked about the recent Hamas attacks, Bassem Youssef didn’t shy away from responding sarcastically to presenter Piers Morgan, who even asked him to be more serious.
“Oh, it was terrible, of course,” he replied. “I mean, we get all our news second-hand because my wife’s family lives in Gaza. They have cousins and uncles there and their house was also bombed. We haven’t been able to communicate with them for the last three days. Communication has been lost, so we don’t know how they are, but we’re used to it!”
The Egyptian continued:
“These Palestinians are very dramatic. ‘Oh, Israel is killing us’, but they never die,” he said. “I mean, they always come back. They are very difficult to kill, very difficult people to kill. I know, because I’m married to a Palestinian. I’ve tried many times. I try many times, but she uses our children as human shields.”
Watch an excerpt from the interview:
Who is Bassem Youssef?
Bassem Raafat Muhammad Youssef is 49 years old and Egypt’s most famous comedian. He was born in Cairo, the country’s capital. Youssef is also a cardiologist by training and a TV presenter. He hosts the CBS program “El Bernameg”.
Youssef rose to prominence in 2011 with his YouTube program The B+ Show. He used to expose, always with a debauched tone, the coverage of the Egyptian Revolution that was taking place that year on the country’s state television network. The low-budget production went on to attract hundreds of thousands of hits and became the Egyptian channel with the most subscribers on YouTube.
As a doctor, he was part of the team that treated the wounded in Cairo’s Tahrir Square when Egyptian protesters were suppressed by former president Hosni Mubarak’s forces in 2011. Bassem Youssef is also a member of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Youssef was arrested in 2013 on charges of insulting the country’s then president, Mohamed Mursi, and Islam. He was released on bail of 15,000 Egyptian pounds (US$2,200 at the time).