Ricky Gervais reveals truth behind his death wish of being fed to lions at London Zoo

When Ricky Gervais joked in 2021 that he wanted his body fed to the lions at London Zoo, he assumed the line would land and disappear. Instead, it turned into a headline, a public response from the zoo, and a recurring bit that has followed him for four years. NNow, with his Netflix special Mortality recently released, Gervais has finally laid out how a throwaway gag became a minor cultural saga, and why it still amuses him.

The joke that escaped the room

The original remark came during a 2021 appearance on Conan, when host Conan O’Brien asked Gervais what he wanted to happen to his body after death. He took offence at the question and answered with deliberate absurdity. “I thought it would be good to be just fed to the lions at London Zoo. That would be useful, isn’t it? We never give anything back. We take everything from this world. We just eat animals; anything that moves we eat. We destroy. Deforestation. We don’t give anything back.” He said.

He went on to paint the scene in darkly comic detail: “At least then… I’d like the look on the tourists’ faces when they throw this dead, fat, n***ed, 73-year-old, maybe, if I’m lucky, to the lions, and as it lands some people go, ‘Is that the bloke from The Office?’”


Gervais later explained that the answer was meant as pure invention. “I thought it was rude, so I gave a fake answer,” he said during his stand-up in Mortality. The problem, he discovered, was that the joke was taken at face value. “So I said that, as a joke, but he believed me. So much so that when he was writing up the article, he called London Zoo and asked them if that would be allowed. And they said, ‘No, of course not.’ Right? So when the article came out, the headline was ‘London Zoo refuse Ricky’s request to be fed to lions.’ Like I’m a f**king psychopath.”

London Zoo’s very literal reply

When the comment went viral, London Zoo was contacted for a response, and obliged. A spokesperson told The Sun that Gervais would be “a bit gristly” for the lions. Kathryn England, the zoo’s chief operating officer, added that the organisation was struggling financially after lockdown and suggested that anyone wanting to “give something back” could donate instead, to help keep the animals fed “on a more suitable diet”.

The straight-faced reply surprised Gervais. “I didn’t really think anyone would take my comment seriously,” he later said, recalling his disbelief when the headline read: London Zoo refuse Ricky’s request to be fed to lions. “Like I’m a f***ing psychopath.”

Why he keeps coming back to it

The episode has since become a recurring story in Mortality, Gervais’s latest stand-up show, which centres on death, meaning, and the pointlessness of worrying about what comes after. On stage, he revisits the lion fantasy in increasingly graphic detail, even speculating which parts of his body the lions would eat first, before circling back to the same conclusion. The special was recently in the Top 10 in 51 countries in its first 24 hours, briefly surpassing the hit show Stranger Things.

“My point is, you can’t worry about what happens after you die,” he told Metro. “Live your life. Let someone else worry. You’re dead. You’ve done your bit.”

That philosophy also underpins his off-stage actions. To mark the premiere of Mortality, Gervais announced he was donating £2.43 million from his tour profits to 22 animal charities.


“These are the lovely charities I’ve chosen. Merry Christmas critters,” he wrote on X, reinforcing a commitment to animal welfare that has long run alongside his provocation.