Nicole Byer is opening up about the time she was subject to racist heckling while onstage.
On the latest episode of Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s on Me podcast, Byer opened up about a comedy show she did in Appleton, Wisconsin.
“I did shows in Appleton, Wisconsin, which I talk about in my special, and I really hated it there,” Byer said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “The vibes f**king sucked. Bad vibes.”
She added, “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 f**k?'”
Hoping to get support from a staff member, Byer says she asked a server, “You’re not going to say anything?” and their response was a nonchalant “What?”
“It just blew my mind,” she said.
Although ticketholders were promised to meet Byer after the show, she decided against doing 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.
Byer said that not feeling protected made the “scary” situation even worse. After Byer’s time in Wisconsin, her friend informed her that she was in a “sundown town,” — areas that practice racial segregation by excluding nonwhite people from the area, through violence, legislation or intimidation.
“I will never go back to Appleton, Wisconsin,” Byer declared.
