Dan Nainan escorted out of comedy club

An American comedian has reportedly been arrested after punching a reporter who tweeted criticisms during his set.

Police led Dan Nainan out of the DC Improv comedy club in handcuffs last night after he attacked Josh Rogin.

The Newsweek and Daily Beast journalist had been live tweeting the ‘funniest celebrity in Washington’ benefit show, but Nainan – who bills himself as ‘100 per cent clean Indian comedian’ – took offence at comments made about his set.

The critical tweets included: ‘Dan Nainan makes his umpteenth joke about how Asians cant distinguish between letters "L" and "R". Election, erection, we get it.’

And ‘Dan Nainan was funny until he dusted off his 2005 Katrina jokes in a gratingly bad GWB [George W Bush] impression.’

Eleven minutes later, Rogin tweeted: 'Dan Nainan just punched me in the face. Not a joke.'

The comic apparently approached the reporter at the back of the club and asked: ‘Are you Josh Rogin?’

Rogin says the stand-up ‘punched me in the jaw, then he pushed me, then he walked away and about 10 seconds later he came over and punched me again’.

Quoted in US & World Report News – which also had a reporter at the show  – Rogin added: At that point I yelled, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ other people noticed and they courted him off and the bouncers escorted him from the show room and we called the police.’

Rogin later added on Twitter: ‘Thanks for all the support tweeps. Physically I am fine. Just not used to getting attacked for tweets.’

But Nainan – a former Intel engineer who once performed comedy for President Obama and has supported Russell Peters – posted only: ‘Had a blast headlining the DC improv!’

Last year, Nainan confessed that he had bought 220,000 Twitter followers from a black-market company, telling the New York Times: ‘The number of Twitter followers I had in relation to how many people in the world know about me was woefully inadequate. There’s a tremendous cachet associated with having a large number [of followers]. When people see that you have that many followers, they’re like, “Oh, my goodness, this guy is popular. I might want to book him”.’ 

Here he is in action:

Published: 26 Sep 2013