How viral moment has impacted comedian from Lexington who chugged drink thrown by heckler
When comedian and Lexington native Ariel Elias walked off stage minutes after a heckler threw a can of High Noon hard seltzer at her from the crowd during a show Saturday, she remembered thinking the incident would make a good Twitter clip.
Little did Elias know that she was right. But she undersold it. The video she posted to Twitter went viral, garnering millions of views and more than 20,000 retweets. She says she’s gained more than 100,000 Twitter followers since the clip was posted, and comedians she previously idolized are applauding her for how she handled the scary moment.
The incident, which has been covered heavily by media outlets across the country, occurred after she got into a back-and-forth with an audience member who questioned her about who she voted for in the 2020 election. After the audience member seemed to take offense to Elias voting for President Joe Biden, someone with the heckler threw their drink at Elias. It hit the wall behind her on-stage.
Elias responded by picking up the drink and chugging what was left of it, prompting the crowd to cheer.
The clip Elias posted on Twitter generated over 5 million views and grabbed the attention of people all over the internet. She’s now got 113,000-plus Twitter followers and counting. Elias said everyone in the media who covers stand-up comedy is talking about it. Elias told the Herald-Leader she was “definitely surprised” by the reaction the clip generated.
“I thought that this would get me like a few hundred more followers,” she said.
The incident happened at a show at Uncle Vinnie’s Comedy Club in New Jersey. Elias was attempting to do a question-and-answer segment with the audience during her set when one of the hecklers asked her about who she voted for in the 2020 election.
Elias didn’t directly answer the question but told the audience they should vote for whoever they want and that she was just happy they were in attendance. The heckler continued to press Elias until the drink was thrown.
Elias said she couldn’t see the can coming at her or the woman she had the argument with.
“The way that the lights are when you’re on stage, you can barely see past anybody in the front row. You can kind of just see outlines and shapes,” Elias said.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the person who threw the can was the heckler’s husband. The owner of the comedy club told Entertainment Weekly he ran out of the club after throwing the drink, but a police report was filed and authorities were able to determine who the suspect was.
Elias appeared shocked when the can smashed against the wall, but she picked up the beverage and drank the rest of it, which caused the crowd to cheer for her loudly.
Afterwards Elias made a few more jokes about the incident before wrapping up her set.
“I made a couple of jokes about like, ‘at least we all have a story from tonight,’” Elias said. “We’ll all have a memory forever, except for her. She’ll remember nothing. She’s blackout.”
Elias doesn’t plan on pressing charges against the man who threw the hard seltzer. While she’s pleased that she appeared calm and collected during the incident, Elias said that was far from the case.
“I’m glad that it seems like I handled it well, and was cool and calm, but the honest answer is I was scared and I had a lot of adrenaline,” Elias said.
As scary as the incident may have been, Elias has received praise from several famous comedians who took note of the way she handled it. Jim Gaffigan, Whitney Cummings and Patton Oswalt, among others have reached out to her or tweeted in support of her actions.
“These are all people I grew up idolizing and listening to,” Elias said.
Open mic on a whim: How the Lexington native got into comedy
Elias, who is from Lexington and attended Bryan Station High School, has been a stand-up comedian for 11 years. She first got started in New Orleans while attending Tulane University.
Elias had been a saxophone player, but job problems prevented her from playing as often as she liked.
“I still had sort of a performer itch to scratch,” Elias said. “Went to an open mic on a whim and it was the best adrenaline rush I had ever felt and it was so fun and I decided to chase that high for the rest of my life.”
Elias spent three years in New Orleans until she decided to pack her bags and head to New York. She said was chasing a bigger market to test her skills and really see if she can make a living out of comedy.
Elias has been in New York for eight years now and said she’s had a great career up to this point, even without the added fame from her recent incident. She credits her work ethic in helping get her to where she was at.
“One thing I’m very proud of and that I won’t be humble about is my work ethic and how much I do work at this,” Elias said.
Now with the added exposure from the video posted to Twitter, she’s getting more interest from people who are interested in booking her for shows.
“That’s really the goal, like I’m trying to build a career,” Elias said. “I have been trying to do that for the last 11 years, so I’m very glad that this is happening.”
Will Elias perform in her home state soon?
While Elias doesn’t have any official plans to have a show in Kentucky on the calendar, she knows she’ll be returning to her home state at some point soon.
“I’ll be back,” Elias said. “Any excuse to visit my parents and have my mom cook.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 7:24 AM.
