Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Editor's Picks
Editor's PicksEntertainment

Katt Williams Calls It Quits After Another Incident

Posted byBy Kevin Webb | Published on: CommentsComments (15)

Caught in a cycle of bad decisions and legal troubles, Katt Williams has decided to call it quits. Just hours after being bailed out of jail by his tour manager Suge Knight, Williams was kicked out of his Seattle hotel following another incident involving the police. Neither the Courtyard Marriott nor Seattle police would comment as to why Williams was forced to leave.

While speaking with KOMO TV Williams revealed that his current tour was cancelled, and that he would be ending his career as a comedian. “I’m just gonna go ahead and announce my retirement from standup, I’m kinda done,” Williams said, standing on the side of a Seattle road with his luggage. “I’ve discussed it with my kids, I wasn’t gonna do in the middle of a Seattle street, I was going to go to Los Angeles and do it in the offices of ICM or LiveNation.”

Williams explained that the Marriott was the fourth hotel in the city to kick him out in the last few days, and that he’d suffered minor injuries. He planned to offer $301,000 to use the Rhododendron, an up-for-auction Washington State Ferry, as his living space. Williams also intends to file a lawsuit against the city of Seattle for $50 million accusing the city of “crippling my reputation as a father, and a black man, and as a taxpaying citizen, and as a person who is not a convicted felon,”.

“This was a place I like to bring my kids and let them do stuff without people caring who they were,” he said. “I got arrested in front my kids three times in my three days stay in Seattle… And all we were doing was coming into town to sell jokes and police department painted me as some sort of public menace that came to town.”

Last Sunday Williams was arrested for his role in a bar fight. After threatening other patrons with a pool cue, Williams struck a woman in the eye with a cigarette. The incidents are part of a string of questionable incidents dating back to October, when he pulled a gun on actor Faizon Love. Williams suffered a breakdown during a November show at the Oracle Arena, ending with him being escorted off stage. Members of that November 16 crowd have filed a class action suit against Williams for an unspecified amount of damages.

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top