Nicole Byer Will ‘Never Go Back to Appleton, Wisconsin’ After Experience With Racist Hecklers

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | August 7, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | August 7, 2024 |

Comedian Nicole Byer was on a recent episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s on Me podcast where she talked about her “scary” experience with racist hecklers at a comedy show.

“I did shows in Appleton, Wisconsin, which I talk about in my special,” Big Beautiful Weirdo, which is on Netflix, “And I really hated it there. The vibes fucking sucked. Bad vibes,” she said. It was worse than just bad vibes, though. “During my show, I had a white host, a Black feature, and the crowds were so unruly, and at one point, my Black feature was on stage … A guy in the crowd was like, ‘Smile, we can’t see you.’ I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” So, you know, super bad vibes. That’s like, some old-school racism.

She said she “walked out on the floor” and asked a server, “You’re not going to say anything?” and the server didn’t know what she was talking about. After the show, she refused to do the prepaid meet-and-greets. “I told my agent, ‘I’m just not meeting these people. I’m sure that there’s nice people in this crowd, but overall garbage. Bad people, bad vibes.’ I couldn’t believe that man said that.”

She said, “It just blew my mind” that there were “no repercussions” for the heckler. Then she learned about Appleton’s history as a “sundown town,” or a city that enforced segregation even after it was outlawed, and vowed, “I will never go back to Appleton, Wisconsin.”

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