Nicole Byer Recalls “Scary” Experience With Racist Hecklers at a Comedy Show: “Blew My Mind”

Comedian Nicole Byer recalled a “scary” incident with a racist hecklers at a past show in Wisconsin.

“I did shows in Appleton, Wisconsin, which I talk about in my special, and I really hated it there,” Byer said during an appearance on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Aug. 6 episode of his Dinner’s on Me podcast. “The vibes fucking sucked. Bad vibes”

She continued, “During my show, I had a white host, a Black feature, and the crowds were so unruly, and at one point, my Black featurer was on stage…. A guy in the crowd was like, ‘Smile, we can’t see you.’ I was like, ‘What the fuck?’”

Byer said she then “walked out on the floor” and asked a server, “You’re not going to say anything?” and the employee responded, “What?”

“I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” the Nailed It! host said. After the event concluded, she refused to do meet-and-greets, despite the fact they had been sold with the tickets. “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.”

The comedian went on to say the worst part of the experience was that there were “no repercussions.”

“It just blew my mind,” she said, adding that it made the event feel “scary.” She later learned from a friend about Appleton’s history as a “sundown town,” a term which refers to cities that enforced anti-Black segregation even after segregationist laws were overturned.

The experience and subsequent revelation left her with the conviction that “I will never go back to Appleton, Wisconsin.”