Carrot Top’s Luxor Return Leaves the Florida Case Open

Carrot Top returned to a sold-out Luxor on Oct. 19, 31 days after a suicide attempt at his Las Vegas home. The 61-year-old comic, born Scott Thompson, walked into the Atrium Showroom to a standing ovation, then had to decide what a prop act is allowed to say about almost dying.

He had been offstage since Sept. 18, the afternoon a Florida court fight spilled into public view and his manager called for a welfare check. The room on Monday was full. The Broward County file was still open.

What Carrot Top Said in His First Show Back

The first minutes were not a standard trunk dump. Thompson thanked fans, family, his mother, and his brother, called it an emotional night, and said it had been a rough month of trying to figure out what was appropriate. Then he went to the props, because that is the language the residency speaks.

THE FIRST MINUTES

• The room: A long standing ovation on the way in, and another as he left, with the house sold out.
• The seating joke: He said the front row bought first because those people cared the most, the middle figured he was all right, and the back still wanted to know what he had done.
• The trunks: He held up a noose, told the crowd it would probably not be appropriate, then pulled a second noose with a rubber chicken on the end.
• The screen: A red-haired elephant appeared behind him while he said it was the first time in his career he had no idea what to talk about.

He did not pretend the month had been a vacation. He called it a month of reflection, then did the rest of the act in the same visual rush the Atrium has sold for years. Attendees described him as emotional and still in command of the room. A Vegas writer in the building said the meet-and-greet line ran larger than a normal Monday, which is another way of saying people came to see the man as much as the bits.

This would probably not be appropriate.

Carrot Top, opening his Oct. 19 return at Luxor’s Atrium Showroom

That line is the whole problem of the night in one gag. A suicide attempt is not a rubber chicken. A six-night Strip show does not have a second vocabulary, so the crisis went into the trunk with everything else.

The Afternoon He Told His Manager the Show Was Over

The attempt was not a private medical event that happened to land on a show day. Police and his lawyers later put a public sequence on it.

FROM THE POOL TO THE ATRIUM

1. Sept. 18, 2026: A misconduct story circulates in the afternoon. His manager speaks with him, then cannot reach him after a short text that reads “done.” Officers arrive at 4:21 p.m. and find him unconscious near the pool at his Las Vegas home. Friday and Saturday Luxor shows come off the board.
2. Sept. 20, 2026: Publicist Jami Schlicher says he remains in hospital under close care, is awake, is breathing on his own, and is sharing jokes with staff.
3. Sept. 22, 2026: Attorney Ronnie Bitman, in a Broward County filing, confirms a suicide attempt and asks a judge for emergency limits on new court papers.
4. Around Sept. 26, 2026: Schlicher says he is home, recovering, and focused on getting back to comedy. The family asks for privacy.
5. Oct. 4 and Oct. 11, 2026: He is seen at church in Las Vegas with his mother, Dona Wood, who has been driving him.
6. Oct. 17, 2026: He thanks supporters in public for the first time and names Oct. 19 as the return.
7. Oct. 19, 2026: He plays a sold-out 8 p.m. show at the Atrium Showroom.

On the phone that Friday, according to the police report, he told his manager the Las Vegas residency would be over. The manager called police when the follow-up text landed and the line went dead. He was taken to hospital in critical condition. An MGM Resorts spokesman said Scott was a beloved member of the Luxor and MGM family and that the company was relieved he was recovering.

About a week later he was home. The job, which he had just said was finished, was already being rebooked.

Florida Filings Hit the Docket Before the Ambulance

Bitman’s papers describe a yearslong fight with singer Brian Evans, a former opening act who is representing himself in Broward County. Evans filed suit on Aug. 6, 2026, seeking to unwind an earlier settlement. In a Sept. 3 filing, Bitman said Evans had demanded significant sums and warned that a sexually explicit recording of Thompson could be placed in a public court file, where the press could copy it. Emails in the file discuss a $500,000 payment to resolve claims against Thompson.

Evans has denied extortion. He has said he never threatened to post a video in exchange for money, that he was laying out a settlement path, and that the recording was deleted long ago. A separate federal judge, David Leibowitz, had already labeled Evans a vexatious litigant in the Southern District of Florida, writing that he had filed 15 pro se cases in that district since 2025, all of them apparently frivolous, and barring new federal filings without court permission.

On Sept. 14, a declaration from Zachary Defazio, 25, was added to Evans’s state case. It alleged sexual conduct in October 2021, when Defazio was 19 and Thompson was 56. Winter Park, Florida, police said they did not immediately find reports on those claims. The declaration has not been tested in a criminal court.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The attempt: Thompson’s lawyers confirmed in a Florida filing that he was hospitalized after a suicide attempt on Sept. 18.
• The trigger window: His manager told officers a misconduct article had broken that afternoon, and that Thompson sounded done with the residency before the welfare check.
• The other man in court: Evans is a former Luxor opener in an active Broward suit; Bitman calls his tactics extortion, and Evans calls that claim ridiculous.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The Defazio claims: They sit in a civil declaration. Local police said they had no matching report, and the allegations remain unproven.
• The USB recording: Lawyers disagree on whether talk of lodging it was a threat, a litigation step, or both.
• Criminal action against Evans: A Lake Mary, Florida, police report on the alleged demand produced no charge.

Two days after the attempt, Bitman told the Broward court the fight had become an emergency in the most human sense. He asked for gatekeeping so private sexual allegations could not hit a public docket overnight. That motion is the paper trail of a man whose stage name is a joke about his hair, suddenly asking a judge to keep his private life off the internet.

This is now an emergency in the most human sense.

Ronnie Bitman, attorney for Scott Thompson, Sept. 20 Broward County motion

Six Nights a Week, Then a Dark Month

Thompson has headlined the Atrium Showroom since November 2005. The official calendar is Monday through Saturday at 8 p.m., with Sundays dark and more blackout dates already posted into 2027. That is not a weekend cameo. It is a factory schedule, the kind of Strip job that keeps a comic in one city and on one clock until the clock is the life.

WHAT THE ATRIUM STILL SELLS

Luxor’s own copy still pitches trunk loads of props and pop-culture gags. It lists old awards, a meet-and-greet add-on at 7 p.m., and a late-arrival warning. None of that paused for a suicide attempt. Friday and Saturday came off first, then more dates through mid-October, then the Oct. 19 relaunch went up on the Luxor and Ticketmaster sites less than a week after he reached hospital. If that date held, as it did, he would miss more than a month of performances and then start again on the same six-night wheel.

He was in the building the day before the return, running music cues. The show format was expected to stay the same, with veteran comic Rob Sherwood opening. The residency did not get rewritten as a healing lecture. It got a dark month, then an 8 p.m. downbeat.

Church With His Mother, Then a Note to Fans

Between hospital and marquee, the public glimpses were small. He was photographed leaving church with Dona Wood on Oct. 4 and again on Oct. 11, in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans, smiling on the sidewalk. She had been driving him. He had not yet spoken for himself.

On Oct. 17 he posted the first message in his own name. He did not describe the attempt, the pills, the pool, or the lawsuit. He thanked people for love, support, prayers, and well wishes, said every message had meant more than they knew, and named the Luxor date.

"I’m truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, support, prayers, and well wishes I’ve received over the past couple of weeks. 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… pic.twitter.com/dq8B1YStWY

— Carrot Top (@RealCarrotTop) October 17, 2026

Under that note, the useful replies were not reviews. One person reminded him of a kind airport photo in Orlando years ago. Another wrote that they like him around and asked him to stay for a while. The thread treated survival as the news. Tickets were the afterthought.

The 8 p.m. Clock Is Running Again

Ticketmaster still has dates still listed through the week at the Atrium Showroom, with the regular Monday-through-Saturday map restored. A one-night ovation would have been a tribute. A full calendar is a job. Thompson told the room some people, including people in Nebraska, still had no idea what he had done. Those are the buyers the residency has to hold now: the ones who stood on Monday, and the ones who will sit down on a random Wednesday for visual gags and never read a court filing.

The Florida case does not close because a rubber chicken got a laugh. Evans is still in the docket. Bitman is still trying to keep salacious exhibits off it. Thompson is still the man who texted “done” and then, 31 days later, took a microphone in a pyramid on the Strip because that is the work.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 any time. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential, and staffed around the clock. The service also publishes how to support someone in crisis if you are trying to help a friend or relative.

The Atrium Showroom is back on its 8 p.m. clock, and the Broward County file is still open.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a public figure’s hospital stay, court filings, and Las Vegas performances. It is for information only and is not medical, mental-health, or legal advice, and it is not a finding on any civil claim discussed. Readers who are in distress, or who are worried about someone else, should contact a licensed mental-health professional or emergency services, and can also use 988. Dates, ticket prices, show listings, and case status come from the public sources named above and can change as the residency and the Florida litigation move.