Theo Von Addresses Rumors That He “Bombed” His Comedy Special Taping: “It Wasn’t Perfect, I’ll Agree To That”

Starting from the beginning.

Earlier this week, fans of the famed comedian Theo Von expressed concern for him after he reportedly struggled to get through a comedy show he was recording at the Beacon Theater in New York over the weekend. Fans knew that Theo was there at the historic venue to film a Netflix comedy special, and that his performance apparently didn’t go as planned.

Those who were in attendance have stated on the internet that Von failed to deliver many of his jokes, walked off stage multiple times for help with punchlines, and even repeated some of his bits to try to get it “just right” for the cameras filming. People were apparently walking out during the show as well… so all signs point toward Theo Von’s night at the Beacon Theatre being a disastrous one. Some suspected that Theo, who tries to maintain a sober lifestyle, was possibly drunk or under the influence of some other kind of drug.

Fans knew that Von had transparently spoken about struggling in certain areas of his life in recent interviews and after the alleged trainwreck of his taping, in the most concerning proof that Theo might not be okay, he was caught on video saying this to fans, after his Beacon Theatre show:

The clip went viral and sparked widespread concern among fans for the 45-year-old. However, Von shared on a recent podcast episode that his fans do not need to worry about him in that capacity and reassured listeners that he would never take his own life.

In a solo This Past Weekend podcast episode, Von discusses what occurred during his comedy special taping, starting from the very beginning. A few months before the taping, Von decided to wean himself off his mental health medication so that he could have more emotion during a few segments of his show.

“So mental health is important to me; we talk about that kind of stuff on here a lot. So I had a comedy special that we were taping. We were taping it last week, and about a month before I stopped taking some antidepressants I was taking. You know, I just kind of self-weaned myself off. And the reason why was because I wanted, during the comedy show, I wanted to have a little more emotion during it. I wanted to have this kind of, I just wanted to have some more feelings.”

Von then explains how an antidepressant works, calming your mind and alleviating some of the emotional aspects of your everyday life. While Von said he’s thankful that he’s on the medication because it’s overall good for him, sometimes the medicine makes him feel like “the astronaut that stays on the ship,” and he didn’t want that feeling while taking his special.

Understandable, right?

However, after weaning himself off this medicine, many tragedies began unfolding in our nation. Charlie Kirk was murdered, which Von shared, and it really shook him to his core to see someone taken out like that in broad daylight. He also shared how scary it was that videos of his murder were accessible to us on our phones without any trigger warning.

After that, Von was also distraught that the Department of Homeland Security used a video of him in a trap beat style video of them deporting immigrants. Von called out the department for not getting his consent to use his face in the footage, and they later deleted it.

“Yo DHS I didn’t approve to be used in this. I know you know my address so send a check. And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

“So that had me really kind of paranoid. That had me start to get paranoid, like I had the curtains in my house kind of closed. You’re paranoid. I woke up the next morning to a text from a high government official being like, ‘Hey, if you need some extra security in your neighborhood or some extra police cars on patrol, let me know.’ And I’m like, ‘What? What are you talking about? Extra security? I don’t even know the code to my Ring camera.'”

All of this leading up to his performances would put a lot of pressure and unnecessary stress on someone, and on top of that, Von is now unmedicated, and so he’s feeling everything to a different degree than he does when taking his antidepressants.

Fast forward to show day. Von shared that as soon as he stepped on stage for the first show, he could feel that something was off.

“The second I got on stage, the first show, I couldn’t feel any moisture in my mouth. And I started to feel like, you ever remember in if you were high school, if you ever got high and you were standing there talking to your friends and you were just too high and you’re literally just standing there pretending to be yourself a little bit? So I had a little bit of that going on. And it started off choppy, the first show was a little choppy…

But the whole show, there were just parts that I couldn’t remember the next thing. Like, I couldn’t remember the next sequence. I was having trouble keeping track of stuff, and that’s when I was really like, ‘Oh man, I’m just off tonight. I’m just off tonight.’ I think I remember saying to the audience, ‘Thank you for being here for me,’ and the audience was cool, man. They were super stoked when I came out, and I started to feel bad that I wasn’t giving them the best show.” 

Von admitted that the first show went long, and some last-minute changes they made to the script completely threw him off. However, Chris Rock came to him after the first show of the day and said that he liked it, which put Von in a better frame of mind. In preparation for the second show of the day, he practiced his meditations, took ice baths, and followed his usual routine to clear his mind.

The routine worked going into the second show, but Von was still in his head, leading to more hiccups in the second show of the day.

“And then we did the second show, and the second show started out fire. The first 22 minutes we’re cooking, and then I couldn’t remember stuff. And we didn’t put a teleprompter; we’ve done it for other specials, we didn’t do it, and that was a bad choice. I probably made the choice for sure, I don’t remember. So I had to ask for help, I was having to ask off stage because I wanted to get everything in sequence. I think I got stuck on this sequence thing. It was just hard. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like I was trying to pretend to be myself. And it wasn’t insane or extreme, it just… that was it. 

We got to the end of the show, and we were standing around afterwards with the producers and the director, and my friend Kevin, just like ‘Did we get it? Did we get it good enough?'”

In the end, while the directors said they were going to cut some stuff together to see if they got a good take, Von shared that he still had a pit in his stomach about how it was going to end up:

“I just couldn’t feel the magic, I was off.”

After the second show, this clip of him saying he was “trying not to take his own life” was filmed. As we previously stated, Von reassured fans that he would never do something like that, and his saying that, while it’s not a joke to many, is something that he would say. We all know that Von has no filter, and this was one of those moments that was poorly timed, leading to concern.

In the end, Von admitted that he did not love his performance, but many people loved his special, so he is adopting the mindset that they will review the edit and then decide if they need to reshoot it.

We are glad to hear that Von is doing well and doesn’t sound like he’s down too badly from his special. We all have our good and bad days, and it seems like Von was just having a bad day during his special, but he feels like he was far from “bombing” it like many fans were saying.

“It wasn’t perfect, man, I’ll agree to that.” 

Check out the whole episode while you’re here.

The post Theo Von Addresses Rumors That He “Bombed” His Comedy Special Taping: “It Wasn’t Perfect, I’ll Agree To That” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.