Originally posted Tuesday, October 1, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Bert Show's Davi Crimmins, at City Winery Atlanta Friday night, felt she was verbally attacked by headliner Heather MacDonald minutes before opening for the comic.
There were communication issues that led to Heather getting angry over the fact Davi had no idea she had to keep her set clean. And in Davi’s mind, Heather needlessly took out her anger on Davi.
“I accidentally opened for Satan,” Davi said. “She’s the worst person in the world!”
Davi said originally she was given 30 minutes and there were no limitations placed on her material. They then trimmed her time to 15. She was fine with that.
She arrived at City Winery early on Friday evening and got her own green room. She figured MacDonald wanted her own space. At 7:47 p.m., Heather invited Davi to her green room.
After some initial niceties, Heather proceeded to tell Davi that her set had to be clean. No cussing. No sex. That’s for Heather to do, not her. Davi, not prepared, said she could do that on Saturday night but what she had to do in a few minutes would be a little bit blue.
“This is where she loses it,” Davi said, using a Buddha to play her and a “Nightmare Before Christmas” Jack Skellington as Heather (a play off Heather using Barbie dolls to play “Real Housewives” characters.)
“I don’t know why the f- you’re here,” Heather allegedly told Davi. “I don’t know who the f you are. They just put your name next to mine.”
She tried to find proof that she had told City WInery she was clean but couldn’t immediately find it. “I told them I didn’t even want you here unless you could be clean because being dirty is my thing. My thing!”
At this point, Davi stopped being nice and started getting real. She told Heather that being dirty was also Joan Rivers' thing, Lisa Lampanelli's thing, Amy Schumer's thing. "It ticked me off. In 5 seconds of meeting someone, nobody has ever spoken to me like that before," Davi said.
She then dismissed Davi, telling her to stay at 10 and prepare some clean, local material in a few minutes. Davi decided to stick with her regular material, some of it dirty. She did her show and while she felt it was terrible, she managed to get through it, even in front of her in laws.
“I felt like it was the worst set I’ve ever done,” Davi said.
"You handled it like a pro," said Kristin Klingshirn, her Bert Show castmate who was in the audience. "You did an awesome job. I was laughing. I was stage mom and taking pictures."
(Davi said she realized later that Heather was going through other issues with the venue that was stressing her out but that didn’t excuse her behavior.)
The next night, Davi avoided Heather and did about 17 minutes: “I made fun of her stupid Barbie dolls and reminded me of my great great aunt’s guest bedroom... She made me feel uncomfortable in my realm and I don’t appreciate that.”
Then Davi threw in one more dig: “She said the show was sold out. It wasn’t. There were a lot of empty tables!”
The news of Davi’s Monday complaints reached Heather on the West Coast via social media. So Heather called into the Bert Show after the show was over and they taped it. The very awkward, tense interview aired Tuesday morning.
Heather talked... a lot. "I'm not sure we resolved anything," said Bert Weiss.
Heather explained in detail that she did not know at first she was going to even have an opening act. She ultimately accepted it, deciding the Bert Show would help her sell tickets, but said she informed the venue to pass on to Davi that Heather wanted ten, clean minutes. (She said it’s hard as a comic to follow up someone who does a bunch of d*** jokes.)
This info never got to Davi and Heather said she felt bad about that. She then got peeved when she found out another comic Dedrick Flynn was supposed to come on as well. "This is not a comedy club!" she said. She nixed the middle comic but kept Davi.
Heather said she wanted to meet with Davi the next night for her second show because “I felt bad that I really threw her like that.”
Davi refused because she didn’t want to be thrown off again for her second set.
During her talk with the Bert Show, she never outwardly owned up to her own rude comments to Davi, nor did she deny them.
And though Heather apologized for what happened, she did so in a tone and manner that suggested she wasn’t all that sorry, that she was just peeved that Davi made her look bad in public and she was trying to save face.
“She is a very funny girl and I wish her the best in her career,” Heather said, “but all the trolls are coming after me. It wasn’t Davi’s fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was miscommunication 101.”
She concluded: “I am not Satan. I support other women!”
“If you want to bash me for the next 20 years on our show, that’s fine,” she said, throwing shade. “I’m upset with my agent and City Winery. I’m sorry it affected you.”
Davi’s response: “I do appreciate you apologizing. It took a few minutes.”
Heather: “I said it from the very beginning.”
Davi, added, with her own brand of shade: “Don’t worry about us talking about you for 20 years. We won’t be talking about you in 20 minutes.”
Later, Heather relayed her story again in a slightly calmer tone on her podcast “The Juicy Scoop” out today. But the underlying defensiveness remained.
I called and texted Jim Ethridge, marketing director at City Winery, to get the venue's perspective on what happened. He did not respond.
Dedrick, the comic who was cut and a good friend of Davi’s, was astonished this all happened. He said no to other paying gigs to do this as a favor to City Winery to help with ticket sales and was annoyed he ended up wasting his weekend.
“She could have put me up for five minutes!” Dedrick said. “I never talked to Heather. I didn’t see her until she came on stage. She didn’t let anyone in her green room. She doesn’t realize she’s not that important!”
Dedrick, who has done stand up for six years, said plenty of headliners have treated him far better including Donnell Rawlings and Dave Chappelle. He was also flummoxed by Heather's "rules" for openers like keeping it clean and no politics.
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