Businessman Gets Fired After Racist Rant During Gary Owen Show

A local businessman got thrown out of a North Naples comedy club Saturday after he reportedly spewed racial slurs at comedian Gary Owen during his comedy act. His company reportedly fired him after they caught wind of the incident.

Owen said a man, who appeared to be intoxicated, was talking so loud he had to stop his performance and request silence during his set at Off the Hook Comedy Club in Florida.

"To the point where I'm trying to tell a joke and I couldn't get through it, he was so loud," Owen told Fox-affiliate WFTX Sunday.

"At one point I was doing a Trump joke, and he said ‘Yeah, there’s more of us than there is of them.’ And he kept talking, so I kicked him out," Owen said during a Facebook video Saturday.

"Now everybody knows who you are. Hope your boss sees it if you got a job," Owen said.

After the show, Owen, who's wife is African-American, took to social media to air his grievances. He called out the heckler, Joesph Lanham, who was Vice President of Sales for National Roofers of Collider, Inc.

During the Facebook video, Owen showed that Lanham left racist comments on his Facebook page.

"Youre a [N-word] living piece of shit and we are paying for you warfare loving [N-word]," the post read.

"He send this to me as a message on Facebook. Now everybody knows who you are. Hope your boss sees it if you got a job," Owen said in his video. "But that $40 you spent on a ticket to see me? I’m going to donate that to the NAACP, you racist f—k."

Brien Spina, owner of the Off the Hook Comedy Club confirmed Lanham’s racist tirade to NBC-affiliate WBBH Monday.

"He was just basically a disruptive customer that wanted to be center of attention during the show," he told WBBH, an NBC-affiliate Monday.

He added, "It's highly inappropriate. We have no place for it. And I think that some of the things probably he had it coming to him."

Lanham’s former boss, Ralph Goddard, saw Owen’s message and fired him from his position, saying of the rant, "It angers you. I mean, there's no call for it."

Goddard claimed he fired Lanham because his company received multiple violent threats from anonymous sources after the racist rant.

"I was fearful for my employees to even come in this morning because I didn't know what to expect," he said.

Owen, in a second Facebook video, claimed Lanham deleted his Facebook account and issued an apology for his actions.

"Many other people with the name Joseph Lanham has sent me messages saying ppl are leaving negative messages on their page," he wrote. "The Joseph you are looking for is not on Facebook anymore."

He added, "He sent me an apology, said he was drunk. But I don't know if I accept it yet because a drunken tongue speaks a sober mind."