Standup comedian Ralph Barbosa is ready to forgive and forget – for the most part. Two weeks ago, Barbosa’s name went viral when veteran comic George Lopez snubbed the young performer on his OMG Hi! Podcast when guest and fellow comedian Steve Treviño brought up Barbosa as an up-and-coming comic he’s hoping succeeds.
After Treviño name-checked Barbosa, Lopez said: “Nobody knows who that motherf—er is! Why do you keep bringing up his name?” He continued to disparage Barbosa throughout the episode. He told Treviño he didn’t think it was “right” to offer support to Barbosa after Treviño said he reached out to him on social media.
The internet was not kind to Lopez, who called Barbosa a few days later to apologize for his comments personally. “George apologized and acknowledged the hard work Ralph has been putting in on the road,” Barbosa’s manager told the Los Angeles Times. “It was a very amicable conversation that Ralph appreciated.”
Barbosa spoke for himself this week during an interview with the Times about how he saw the situation play out between Lopez and himself. “I don’t think he meant it in a personal, messed up way,” Barbosa said. “I know he didn’t. I think it was very heat-of-the-moment on the subject they were talking about on the podcast. Was it a little much? Maybe, but he apologized.”
Barbosa added: “I accepted his apology and told him he didn’t have to do that, and it’s water under the bridge.”
In fact, Barbosa said that Lopez’s comments didn’t bother him as much as something else he said was mentioned on the podcast. “If there’s anything that was messed up about that podcast, it was Steve Treviño saying our generation of comics have it easier,” Barbosa said. “He’s trying to say I had it easy like I haven’t been working as hard as [the older comics] did for their careers. That kinda bugged me looking back on it. The George Lopez thing didn’t bug me at all. Steve Treviño saying the new guys have it easier – who said it’s easy? Who said I’m not working?”
Barbosa also revealed that Treviño reached out to him after the video of the podcast went viral to tell him to “keep doing what you do.” At first, Barbosa considered it a nice gesture by Treviño but later thought it was a self-serving move by the comedian.
“I was like, ‘Thanks. Man, that means a lot. Thanks for standing up for the new guys,’” Barbosa said. “And then, he copied the message and put it in the comments of my video [on Instagram]. And once he did that, I was like, ‘Ah, he’s lame. He’s just doing this so that people can be like, ‘Hey, thanks, Steve, you’re a great guy.’ He’s lame as hell. He’s lamer than George Lopez in my book.”