Carrot Top discharged from hospital, recovering as legal fight over alleged extortion continues

Comedian Carrot Top is out of the hospital and recovering at home with family, a week after what police and court records reviewed by People show was a suicide attempt at his Las Vegas residence.

The 61-year-old entertainer, whose legal name is Scott Thompson, was found unresponsive near the pool at his home on Sept. 18 after calling a member of his team distraught, and was hospitalized in critical condition, People confirmed. Days later, his representative, Jami Schlicher, said Thompson was “awake, breathing on his own and continuing to improve,” and that he had been sharing “moments of humor” with hospital staff.

The hospitalization forced the cancellation of Mr. Thompson’s shows at the Luxor Hotel’s Atrium Showroom, where he has held one of the longest-running residencies on the Las Vegas Strip since 2005. Those performances remained canceled through a three-week stretch that began during his hospitalization and continues now as he recovers at home, TMZ reported.

The incident came amid an escalating legal dispute between Thompson and Brian Evans, a singer who previously worked as his opening act. In a Sept. 3 court filing, Thompson’s attorney accused Evans of threatening to submit a sexually explicit recording of the comedian into a public court docket unless he was paid $500,000 — an early proposal that Mr. Thompson’s team characterized as the basis of its extortion allegation. Days before the Sept. 18 hospitalization, Mr. Evans followed up with a broader offer to settle all claims between the two men for $2 million, which Thompson’s attorney likewise told a Florida court amounted to a “campaign of extortion.”

Mr. Evans has denied any wrongdoing, saying he never threatened — “ever” — to release any recording in exchange for a settlement, and that the material had already been deleted years earlier under a prior agreement.

The dispute traces back to a lawsuit Evans filed July 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in which he accused Mr. Thompson of sending him an unsolicited sexually explicit recording and sought to void a 2024 settlement, claiming psychological trauma tied to the 2023 Maui wildfires had left him unable to fully understand its consequences. Details of that lawsuit were first reported by Radar Online. That federal case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on Aug. 6; the extortion allegations that surfaced weeks later arose in a related, continuing dispute between the two men rather than in that same suit.

Mr. Thompson himself has not publicly addressed the extortion allegations or the circumstances of his hospitalization, though his attorney and representative have spoken on his behalf. Both have repeatedly asked media outlets to respect the family’s privacy as he continues to recover.