Amy Schumer puts TV show on hold after furore over writer's rape remarks

Schumer said she will focus on performing live and writing for at least a year

US comedian Amy Schumer has said she will not make a new series of her TV show Inside Amy Schumer "in the foreseeable future".

Her comments follow an online furore over remarks about rape by one of the show's writers, Kurt Metzger.

The Trainwreck star wrote on Thursday that her Comedy Central programme had not been cancelled and that there will be a fifth series at some point.

But she said she will spend "the next year at least" writing and touring.

Inside Amy Schumer, which started in 2013, showcases the star's sketches, stand-up comedy and interviews.

The controversy surrounding Metzger erupted after he posted a series of strongly-worded Facebook rants stemming from accusations of rape against a fellow stand-up comedian.

He criticised those on social media who jumped to instant judgement, writing: "ALL women are as reliable as my bible! A book that, much like a women [sic], is incapable of lying!"

That sparked a firestorm and led to calls for Schumer to sack him from the TV show.

Inside Amy Schumer won an Emmy Award for best variety sketch series in 2015

She said she could not fire him because "we aren't making the show anymore. There are no writers for it."

Speaking to TV interviewer Charlie Rose, Schumer said Metzger was her friend and she was not on Facebook so did not read his "crazy rants", but added they were "not representative of me at all".

She said: "I've asked him, 'Can you just stop?'

"Because he writes for the show, it's a bigger story because of our connection, and so whatever tangent he's gone off on, I have not agreed with and it's been really upsetting to me seeing someone I care about hurt themselves like this.

"And so right now there's no plans for the TV show to come back any time in the near future, so nobody's on my staff. There are no writers."

'Same page'

Apparently referring to outraged social media users, she continued: "They want his head. They want to burn him at the stake. I want them to not attach me to what he's writing.

"And I would love to refocus the energy and the attention on the real problem, which, I feel, is about rape, and what's consensual and what's not."

Schumer is currently promoting her memoir The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, in which she says she lost her virginity as a teenager when her then-boyfriend had sex with her without her consent.

In the Charlie Rose interview, she added: "I was sexually assaulted. I encourage women to come out and I want men to hear what happens so there's no confusion because people have different understandings of what sexual assault is, what rape is.

"So let's all get on the same page so it happens less."