Long before he walked out on show, comedian George Lopez packed crowds in Fresno area
George Lopez walked out early on a performance at a casino Friday night in Tulare County.
The abrupt departure was a shock from a mega-popular comedian who has enjoyed a crowd-pleasing career in the central San Joaquin Valley of California since the mid-1980s.
The dust-up made celebrity news.
TMZ ran a story, in which Lopez blamed the venue for not dealing with hecklers in the crowd.
Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville refuted those claims in a statement Sunday, offering an apology to fans and refunds to those who were at the show.
From comedy clubs to the Save Mart Center
Lopez has been one of the most consistent figures in the Valley’s entertainment scene.
Long-time fans can likely trace his career via his performances here: from struggling comic (he performed at Ray Appleton’s Screwballz comedy club several times in the mid- to late-1990s) to full-on super star who sold out the Save Mart Center on multiple occasions.
His 2008 performance at the arena in Fresno was the venue’s highest attended event for the year and set a box-office record.
Nearly 16,000 fans showed up to see Lopez — more than the 14,940 who came to see Prince in concert in 2004.
Even as recently as 2019, the Saroyan Theatre in Fresno had to add a second show to accommodate Lopez’s popularity in the region.
But the comedian liked playing smaller venues in the Valley as well. Over the years, he performed at the Fox theaters in both Hanford and Visalia.
“It probably has a lot to do with the audience and his love of small Valley towns,” the owner of Hanford’s Fox Theatre told The Bee in 2011.
“But we really think he comes here to try out new material before he tries it out on the big audiences.”
And it wasn’t just performances that brought Lopez to the Valley.
For several years in the late-2000s, he competed as celebrity guest at the Save Mart Shootout golf tournament, even winning the thing in 2008 (on a team that featured former Fresno State star Nick Watney, then a regular on the PGA Tour).
Why did Lopez walk out on comedy show?
Friday night’s show at Eagle Mountain Casino was actually scheduled for April.
According to the casino, Lopez postponed the performance (at the last hour) due to a medical emergency.
The rescheduled show, which was sold out according to the casino, ended 30 minutes earlier than expected, with Lopez leaving the stage and walking to his dressing room.
He was eventually transported back to the Porterville airport by Eagle Mountain Casino transportation, the casino said in its statement Sunday.
“The claims of unruly guests are not consistent with casino footage and surveillance,” the casino wrote.
It was the job of Lopez’s private security to inform casino security if they wanted anyone escorted out. That never occurred, the casino said.
“We also know that at a comedy show, there are also likely some outbursts that casino security would have been happy to address had any issue been made known,” assistant general manager Tiffani Sahagun said.
“We only want our guests to have a safe and enjoyable experience, and we want our entertainers to feel safe and enjoy coming to Porterville as well.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2024 at 1:38 PM.