Hey, did hear about John Mayer being a jerk? You have? Oh. Well, I guess we all knew that. But I wasn't just talking about general douchebagginess.
I'm talking about specific instance involving the singer/songwriter's recent bizarre (and apparently disastrous) foray into stand-up comedy, where he not only interrupted another comic's set, but also made racist cracks about him: John Mayer Labeled an 'Accidental Racist' After Interrupting Kumail Nanjiani's Recent Stand-up Set.
The comic who got Mayered: rising star Kumail Nanjiani, who was featured earlier this year as one of New York's "Ten Comedians to Watch," has been writing and performing on Comedy Central's Michael and Michael Have Issues, and recently sold a sitcom idea to NBC. And now he can add 'had a weird celebrity encounter' to that list:
While we had heard some word of Mayer's bizarre stand-up appearance bubbling around, it wasn't until we attended last night's Get Off Your Knees comedy night at the Bell House in Brooklyn that we realized how deep the story went. After an opening set from his Michael and Michael Have Issues co-star Michael Showalter, Nanjiani took the mike and proceeded to tell the crowd of 200 or so attendees about the incident in which John Mayer showed up at the Slipper Room unannounced last Tuesday night and asked the evening's emcee, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Seth Herzog, if he could do five minutes of stand-up.* According to Nanjiani, who was originally scheduled to take the stage when Mayer showed up, Mayer then proceeded to bomb for not five minutes, but for twenty, eating into Nanjiani's performance time. Which would have been fine, except Mayer then decided to come back out onstage AGAIN in the middle of Nanjiani's set. This is when things got weird.Nanjiani recounts the story in the video above. I think he's being a little too nice about the encounter. Vulture's account doesn't just paint John Mayer as an ass -- he acted like an entitled ass. Thinking you can be an actual standup comic is one thing, but interrupting another comic's set, then making jokes about the Brown man? That's racist! Stick to the music, Mayer (if you must).
To hear Nanjiani tell the story, he was somewhat rattled after having had his set time cut by John Mayer, but things got awkward after Mayer referred to the Pakistan-born Kumail as "Kabul." Whoops! Making matters even worse, Mayer apparently then began heckling Nanjiani onstage, telling him that "he looked like a brown guy but sounded like a white guy." Double whoops! Now, Nanjiani was careful last night not to accuse Mayer of being a racist, nor does he seem to hold a real grudge against Mayer; rather, he was just relating a hilariously surreal story of a recent stand-up gig to a bunch of comedy nerds (like us!).