Carrot Top Breaks His Silence and Sets His Luxor Return for Monday Night

October 17, 2026

LAS VEGAS

The longest-running comedy act on the Las Vegas Strip is coming back Monday night, and its star finally said so himself. Scott "Carrot Top" Thompson, 61, broke a month of public silence on Saturday with an Instagram statement thanking fans for their support since his September hospitalization, and closed the message with the news his audience has been waiting for: he returns to the stage at the Luxor Hotel and Casino on Monday, October 19, at 8 p.m., resuming the residency he has held at the property since 2005. USA TODAY and Parade both reported the statement Saturday, making it the comedian's first public comment since the September 18 crisis that put him in a Las Vegas hospital and forced the cancellation of his shows.

What he said on Saturday

The statement was a thank-you note before it was a comeback announcement. "I'm truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, support, prayers, and well wishes I've received over the past couple of weeks," Thompson wrote, in a post built around a photograph of him smiling onstage. "Every message, text, and kind thought has meant more to me than you know," Thompson continued in the post. He acknowledged that he has not been able to answer everyone individually, and closed the thought plainly, still writing in the same post: "Thank you for being there for me during this time. It truly means the world to me," he wrote. Only after the gratitude came the booking news — the October 19 show at the Luxor, the first performance of his self-named prop comedy show since the incident, per Page Six and the announcement coverage.

The response arrived immediately and from inside the business. "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder was among the first to answer in the comments. Einbinder wrote "love you scott," using the comedian's given name, per Page Six. Fans filled the thread beneath her. The tone of the replies matched the tone of his post — relief more than curiosity — and the announcement itself carried the same message in practical form: the show goes on.

The month since September 18

Thompson was hospitalized in Las Vegas on the evening of September 18 following a suicide attempt, first reported by TMZ. His representative, Jami Schlicher, told USA TODAY on September 21 that her client was "hospitalized and under close medical care." Schlicher added that Thompson was "breathing on his own and continuing to improve, surrounded by his family and those closest to him." Schlicher did not comment at the time on why he had been hospitalized. His team also issued a statement through People saying he was recovering in the hospital, receiving the care and support he needed, and asking for privacy on behalf of his family and those closest to him, per Parade.

He was released from the hospital on September 26, per Parade, and kept the low profile his team had asked for. In the weeks since, he had been seen attending church with his family on several occasions, and made two public appearances earlier in October alongside his mother at a local Las Vegas church, according to reports collected by Parade and NowWire. His Luxor performances were canceled while he recovered. The Saturday statement is the first time he has addressed any of it in his own words — and characteristically, he used it to talk about everyone else.

Two decades at the Luxor

To understand why a single Monday-night comedy show leads a Las Vegas news file, consider the tenure involved. Thompson has headlined at the Luxor since 2005, per KLAS — a 21-year run that makes his residency one of the longest-running headliner shows on the Strip, outlasting casino sales, rebrandings and entire eras of Las Vegas entertainment. He arrived in the job as a fully formed act: the wild red hair, the satirical prop trunk, the inventions built out of household junk that he has been hauling onstage since he grew to fame in the 1990s. USA TODAY's backgrounder lists the résumé that made him a fixture of American television along the way — appearances as himself in "Reno 911!," "CSI," "Family Guy," "Scrubs," the Comedy Central Roast and, most recently, "Hacks."

Residencies like his survive on reliability. The act plays to tourists who may know nothing about him beyond the hair, night after night, year after year, in a pyramid on the south Strip. That is exactly what made the last month so jarring: a show that had run for two decades simply went dark, with no word from its star, while the theater waited. Monday's 8 p.m. performance ends that silence in the most ordinary way imaginable — a working comic walking back into his own room, on schedule, in front of a paying crowd. Nothing about that is ordinary at all, and everyone in the building will know it.

The room he is walking back into

Previously's Vegas desk has spent the fall covering an entertainment calendar that keeps turning — new rooms opening, residencies launching, festivals downtown — but the Carrot Top story has run on a different track since September, defined by an absence. Saturday's statement closes the information gap in the way his team always said it would have to: with Thompson himself speaking, on his own timing, and pointing at a date on the calendar rather than a timeline for statements. The date is Monday. The room is the Luxor theater he has played since 2005. The first joke of the night will land on an audience that has spent a month sending him messages he has now, finally, answered.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available around the clock in the United States. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.