A teary eyed Katt Williams told reporters outside of a Seattle hotel that he was throwing in the towel after a tumultuous year that included arrests, cancellations, altercations and erratic stage performances.
“I’m just gonna go ahead and announce my retirement from standup, I’m kinda done” Williams told reporters. “I’ve discussed it with my kids, I wasn’t really 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 was arrested Sunday afternoon, according to seatlepi.com, after a bar fight in which police said he’d brandished a pool cue at a bar manager and followed a family outside to their car, flicking a cigarette at the face of a woman in the car and throwing a rock at the vehicle.
In Oakland on Nov. 16 he had a meltdown on stage, leaving the stage just 10 minutes into his act after taking off his clothes and challenging several audience members to fight. A Modesto man, one of two people to file a lawsuit related to the performance, was seeking class-action status to sue on behalf of all the audience members.
Before that, in the wee hours Nov. 15, Williams had been arrested in connection with a fight the night of Nov. 14, where according to the Oakland Tribune he was accused of whacking an 18-year-old aspiring rapper from Berkeley on the head with a bottle. The comic was released before noon the same day he was arrested without any charges being pressed.
In Sacramento on Nov. 25, driving a three-wheeled motorcycle, he led police on a chase through sidewalks and walkways downtown after they approached him on a disturbing-the-peace complaint, according to Fox40 News .A ways into the chase, he reportedly doffed his helmet and told cops, “I’m not going to stop”; the chase was reportedly called off after police decided it was too dangerous to continue.
Williams later was caught on videotape in a Target in Woodland, Calif., slapping an employee and then leaving in one of those little electric carts before getting back on his motorcycle in the parking lot. The employee, who called 911 on Williams, wound up getting fired for unknown reasons, according to TMZ.
According to StubHub, Williams has December concert dates set for Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Ala., Kansas City and Indianapolis, with a couple on tap in Vegas in January.
Information from TMZ.com, The Oakland Tribune, SeattlePi.com and The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
