'A Month of Reflection': Carrot Top Takes the Luxor Stage Again, and Meets the Elephant in the Room Head-On

LAS VEGAS

There was no easing into it, because there could not be. Carrot Top returned to the stage at the Luxor Hotel & Casino on Monday night for the first time since his suicide attempt last month, in front of a sold-out crowd, and he addressed the reason for his absence the way he has addressed everything in a four-decade career — by making it the material, in the open, in the first minutes of the show.

An emotional night, played straight at the hard part

The comedian, 61, whose real name is Scott Thompson, told the crowd it had been a "month of reflection" and called it an "emotional night," in video from the show obtained by Page Six. He sorted the room by how much it knew. The people in the front row, he joked, were the first ones to get tickets because "they're the ones who cared the most." "The middle section was like, 'He's alright,'" he quipped. "The back row's like, 'What happened? What the f–k he do?'" Then the acknowledgement underneath the joke: "It's true. Some people have no idea what I've done," he said, alluding to his suicide attempt last month.

Thompson said it was tough figuring out "what was appropriate" for his first set back — and then walked over to his famous trunk of props and pulled out a noose. "This would probably not be appropriate," he said, holding up the rope as the audience erupted in laughter. He followed it with another noose, this one with a rubber chicken hanging from the end. Behind him, an image of an elephant with red hair appeared on the large screen — his nod, unmistakable and self-drawn, to the elephant in the room. He thanked the crowd and joked that it was the first time in his career he had no idea what to talk about. By the end of the set, video showed the crowd erupting in applause as he left the stage, and TMZ reported the audience roared for him with a standing ovation for his return. One attendee's account, shared on social media and cited by TMZ, called the handling of the return "grace, humility and a smidge of irreverent humor. Pitch perfect."

How he got back to this stage

Monday's show was the endpoint of a month that began in a hospital. According to police and statements from his lawyers in court records reviewed by People, Thompson was hospitalized following a suicide attempt on September 18; per a police incident report, he was found near his pool in his backyard after calling a member of his team distraught, and he was hospitalized in critical condition. A representative told People at the time that he was "recovering in the hospital" and "receiving the care and support he needs," and that his family and those closest to him were grateful for the concern and asked for privacy. TMZ reported he spent seven days in the hospital before being released, and had since been seen attending church with his mother.

He broke his silence on Saturday, October 17, in an Instagram post — his first public statement about the situation — announcing the Monday return. "I'm truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, support, prayers, and well wishes I've received over the past couple of weeks," he wrote. "Every message, text, and kind thought has meant more to me than you know. While I haven't been able to respond to everyone individually, please know that I've felt your love and appreciate each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being there for me during this time. It truly means the world to me." Previously covered the statement and the planned return in its earlier report. Monday night was where the plan became a performance.

Twenty-one years in the same room

The room matters to the story. Thompson has headlined a long-running residency at the Luxor since 2005 — more than two decades in the same pyramid on the south Strip, performing, in a typical year, nearly 300 shows built on oversized props, comic inventions and elaborate lighting and music. A residency comic's audience is not an arena crowd passing through; it is a room full of people who chose this show, in this hotel, on this night, and on Monday that room was sold out for a performance whose meaning everyone in the front rows, at least, understood before the first prop came out of the trunk.

What happens next is the ordinary machinery of a residency resuming — the show is back on the Luxor calendar, and the comeback, by every account published overnight, landed. But the detail that will stay with this story is not the ovation. It is that a prop comic, handed the hardest first five minutes any performer in Las Vegas has faced this year, solved it with two props and a cartoon elephant — by refusing, in front of a sold-out room, to pretend the month had not happened.

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