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Louis C.K. Is Trying to Make a Comeback

It’s been about nine months since Louis C.K. went from being arguably the most popular stand-up comic in the world to being a recluse, living at Walden Pond and charting the growth of soybeans. I assume that’s what he did, anyway. I imagine all the accused and admitted sexual harassers living on a farm together like that. They’re actually just in their mansions.

Louis emerged from hiding and did a 15 minute set at the Comedy Cellar over the weekend, and his return raises some questions. Questions like “Who decides when Louis gets to come back?” “Does Louis get to come back at all?” and “Why is Louis’s dick out?”

I think that, whether you or I like it or not, Louis is going to come back, rebuild his brand and be successful in comedy. Why do I think that? Well, here’s what the owner of the Comedy Cellar, Noam Dworman, told The Hollywood Reporter about Louis’s drop-in performance.

There was one man who was there who complained in an email the next day and then he and I spoke about it at length. But we had four or five positive emails from customers and if you hear the audio, you hear a real ovation for him.

I spoke to the door guys. Everyone seemed kind of buzzed about it. I think that people recognized it was a kind of historic event. And I think that whatever their feelings were about Louis or what he did, there was still a feeling like, “Well, we were here when he came back.” Except, as I said, this one customer who felt really upset by it and said he felt ambushed. And the ambush is a real issue, I think he makes a strong case about that ambush, and I need to think about how to handle that in the future. But everyone else — and I got positive emails, I’ve been talking to staffers all day about this.

People are happy to have Louis back, and despite what Twitter might look like, it seems like more people are happy than are upset. At the end of the day, comedy club owners and, let’s face it, stadium owners, aren’t going to pass up the kind of money C.K. will bring in if he’s as big of a draw as he was before, and at this point it looks like he will be.

I know Kevin Spacey’s last movie sold like, 5 tickets, but that doesn’t mean everyone accused of inappropriate sexual behavior will be as poorly received. Louis is going to get a lot of slack because the women he was whipping out his dick for weren’t (usually, some were) his employees. They were female comics. He wasn’t their boss, but he certainly had the same sort of power to make or break someone’s career as Harvey Weinstein did in his domain. At the end of the day I’m convinced that whether or not you or I think Louis coming back is good or bad, at this point, it’s inevitable.

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Bilby
Bilby
5 years ago

This guy needs to go away.. FAR AWAY!

WastinTm
WastinTm
5 years ago

It’s simple. He is the greatest standup comic on earth. Fact. That kind of talent is what people demand to see and pay for. Of course, I would not let my daughter within 1 mile of him, but that isn’t on the table. Comedy is. When did people decide all famous people were role models?!?!? It’s stupid. He IS NOT a role model. He is a comedian, a great one at that.