SNL Star Says His Assault Was A Good Thing
SNL alum Chris Redd says the assault he suffered in October helped promote his new HBO stand-up special.
The old adage ‘there’s no bad press’ rings especially true when the press is covering a violent attack outside of a New York City comedy club surrounding SNL star, Chris Redd. In October 2022, Redd was violently attacked by a currently unnamed assailant after performing a show at the Comedy Cellar. Now, only a few weeks later, he’s opening up about it, his opinions on if it was random or not, and how in his mind, it was an absolute blessing in terms of promoting his new comedy special.
Getting assaulted is, generally speaking, rather bad for your health, however, in Chris Redd’s case, this apparently provided the perfect launching point for the SNL alum to plug his new HBO comedy special: Chris Redd: Why Am I Like This? released on HBO Max on November 3rd. Most of the details of his assault were first reported by TMZ, however, Redd recently went on SiriusXM’s The Bennington Show to give further details on the assault.
Speaking about the incident, Chris Redd said, “No promotion was better than getting knocked in the f***ing face. People didn’t even know I had a special out and they were like, ‘Aw, hope he’s okay! What, special?’”
It’s clear that SNL alum Chris Redd is able to take one on the chin (no pun intended) for the sake of his work. So far, it’s clear that the attack has brought a good amount of additional media appearances for his special. Why Am I Like This? filmed in Redd’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, was executive-produced by the comedy legend Conan O’Brien, and directed by Richie Keen.
The special explores Redd’s change of lifestyle and how to ‘be normal’ or ‘act like a normal human’ by acting the furthest thing from ‘normal’ in various stories and misadventures.
He explores what it is like to live someone else’s dream by trying to make it into the NBA at only 5’6’’, performing on SNL for over five years, and Chris Redd’s almost-realized rap career with his performance in Andy Samberg’s mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Redd effortlessly interacts with the crowd and expertly navigates the hecklers trying to derail his show. The icing on top of his comedic cake is the story of when Redd was crying while a woman was twerking with all her might next to him.
Now why Redd’s assailant decided to hang around the club for an hour is currently unknown, as is the identity of the assailant. More details may be released or figured out as Redd announced that he was considering releasing the CCTV footage of his attack soon. During SNL alum Chris Redd’s SiriusXM interview, he says that the NYPD Chief ‘ghosted’ him when following up on the investigation into his attack.
Due to the fact that the special came out after SNL alum Chris Redd’s assault, it’s hard to parse out if his news appearances had a measurable effect on the special’s rating. At the time of writing, his special has received a 6.9/10 according to IMDb user ratings but in terms of raw viewership, HBO Max isn’t releasing any numbers anytime soon.
