Legendary Black Gay Comedian Sampson McCormick Attacked During Live Show

Zachariah Finning March 28, 2022

Trailblazing Black gay comedian and #GayNrd contributor Sampson McCormick was attacked at a live show in Washington D.C. last Wednesday.

The Advocate:

McCormick says that he has performed at Win-River Resort & Casino in Redding, Calif., for seven years, and in that time, he has never been physically attacked. This week, that changed.
“It’s definitely Trump country,” McCormick, who has been performing standup for 21 years, tells The Advocate in an interview about the altercation. “But my shows are safe spaces, and I don’t really make political jokes. I’ll bring the audience with me on the joke when some subjects come up.”
McCormick, 36, says that a woman began heckling him about halfway through his set for no clear reason. He, in kind, turned his attention to her and began responding. During his responses, a man in the audience approached the stage and punched him in the face hard, leading to an all-out fight. The attacker appeared to be in his thirties, according to the comedian.
“As a comedian, I’m going to heckle you back,” he says. “I started teasing her about the obvious, which was that she only had about three-and-a-half teeth in her mouth.”
In a short video posted to social media, McCormick asked, “How many teeth do you have?”

A family of rednecks were in the crowd at my show in Redding,CA tonight—they couldn’t resist me, and I couldn’t resist them. Other than that it was a great show. ???? pic.twitter.com/A0BL9ZgEAJ
— Sampson (@OfficialSampson) March 24, 2022

Next, a woman approached the stage from off-screen, while gesticulating and yelling words at the comedian. The clip ended at this point, and according to Susie Maldonado, who attended the show with a friend, what happened next shocked the audience.
“We were just sitting there enjoying the show, and Sampson was being funny…doing his thing when this little tweaker girl kept trying to get on stage,” Maldonado tells The Advocate.
“This big heavy-set tweaker guy then just rushed the stage, yelling ‘what did you say about my sister,'” she says. “And I don’t even know if Sampson had the time to react because the guy clocked him hard, and then they began fighting.”
McCormick, who is Black, said that he was taken aback when the attacker, who is white and bigger than he is, punched the left side of his face at full power.
“He was in my face,” McCormick says, “I should have kissed him.”
But, McCormick says, the man looked at him and said, “I’m going to beat your Black ass.”
“He hit me so hard,” McCormick said, “I just started hitting him back as hard as I could.”
In the resulting fight, McCormick alleges he hit the unnamed attacker four or five times and slammed him into a table in front of the stage.
“I think he was shocked that this Black, gay guy had just beat him because he stood there like he wanted to throw a chair but thought the better of it,” McCormick says. “Then security got involved.”

After the exchange on that last video I posted, the girls boyfriend walked on stage and punched me in the face.
I then had to remind folks I’m from Southeast DC—and after the fight, continued the show.
The only reason the show continued was because I didn’t lose. ????
— Sampson (@OfficialSampson) March 24, 2022