Carrot Top Overdose Hit During a $2 Million Legal Squeeze

Carrot Top is awake in a Las Vegas hospital after a Friday overdose that hit four days after a $2 million legal demand. Scott Thompson, 61, remains under close medical care, publicist Jami Schlicher said on September 21, and his family has asked that his privacy be respected.

Schlicher did not say what put him there. Clark County Fire Department crews were sent to his house at 4:20 p.m. on Friday, September 18, after a report that the performer was not alert, hours before an 8 p.m. show at Luxor.

Crews Reached the House at 4:20 p.m.

People familiar with the emergency response described a prescription-pill overdose they characterized as a suicide attempt. First responders took Thompson from the house to a hospital. Schlicher has confirmed the stay and the improvement, and she has not confirmed that account of the cause.

By Monday she said he was awake, breathing on his own, and continuing to improve, surrounded by family and the people closest to him. Humor, she said, is still how he connects, including with the medical staff treating him. Fan notes have been read to him, among them stories from people who said his comedy helped them through hard stretches of their own lives.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The call: Clark County Fire Department crews arrived about 4:20 p.m. on September 18 after a report Thompson was not alert.
• The condition: Schlicher said on September 21 that he remains hospitalized, is awake, is breathing on his own, and is continuing to improve.
• The show: He was due on stage at 8 p.m. that Friday in Luxor’s Atrium Showroom, and the weekend dates were pulled.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The cause: Schlicher has not described a suicide attempt or named the medication, and no official medical report has been released.
• The link: Lawyers for Thompson call the Florida fight extortion; Brian Evans calls it settlement talk. No court has ruled that the emails caused the hospital stay.
• The return: Luxor has not said when Thompson will walk back on stage.

On Saturday, an eyewitness photographed three police cars outside the Las Vegas house. Thompson’s last public post before the call, shared Thursday, was a throwback of himself with an orange utility vehicle and a caption about an ordinary commute to the Luxor.

Luxor Posted Dark Dates Through Sept. 26

The Friday and Saturday shows were the first to go. Fox-level ticket chatter on September 19 still had later dates on sale. The hotel’s own show page now lists dark dates through September 26, in two blocks: September 18 to 22, then September 23 to 26. That is nine calendar days with the Atrium board blank, on a run that otherwise plays Monday through Saturday at 8 p.m.

Tickets had been listed from $49.00 plus an $8.72 service fee, or $57.72 before tax. The room is 16 and up, with anyone 18 or younger required to bring an adult. Meet-and-greet add-ons sit on a separate sale. None of that inventory matters if the headliner is still in a hospital bed.

For a generation that treated the orange hair as a late-night punchline, the hospital bulletin landed as a recasting. The man who filled that room six nights a week was in more trouble than the trunks suggested, and the board going dark made that fact visible on the Strip itself.

A $500,000 Email, Then a $2 Million Deadline

The money fight did not start on Friday. On September 3, Orlando lawyer Ronnie Bitman filed papers in Broward County for Thompson that he labeled communications demonstrating extortion. The exhibit was an email from Brian Evans, a Hallandale Beach singer and former opener, offering Path A at $500,000 in immediately available funds to resolve claims against Thompson. If that path closed, Evans wrote, he would proceed with a motion for leave as the next filing.

The same email walked up to the press. Evans wrote that, given the posture of the case and coverage already in print, he expected reporters to use their own imagination about what a USB drive in the public file would mean. He called that a foreseeable fact about a public docket. He also wrote, in the same breath, that it was not a threat.

Bitman’s response in the filing was blunt. This is not settlement communication, Thompson’s lawyers wrote. On its face, they said, it is a malicious threat to expose Thompson to disgrace, and to expose a secret affecting him, with intent to extort money under the guise of litigation conduct.

THE TWO DEMANDS ON THE CLOCK

The larger figure is the newer one. On September 14, four days before crews reached the house, Evans sent a $2 million proposal to end the fight involving himself, Thompson, and several others, and he gave Thompson’s team until Wednesday afternoon to take it. Hours later, Thompson’s lawyer emailed an assistant for Broward Judge Shari Africk Olefson, accused Evans of a campaign of extortion, and asked for emergency relief. The lawyer said Evans was demanding millions or he would file false, malicious, and incendiary materials in the court record for the press to pick up. Friday’s hospital call came two days after that Wednesday deadline.

Evans Says the USB Line Was Not a Threat

Evans, 56, has denied the extortion label in plain language. He said he never threatened to post any video anywhere in exchange for a settlement, and that the recording discussed in the papers was deleted a long time ago under a prior settlement. He also said he was sorry Thompson apparently did something to hurt himself, that he does not consider Scott a bad person, and that a few bad decisions were not a reason to hurt himself. It is not my fault that Scott did what he did, he added. We do not even actually know what he did.

Given the existing posture of the case and the coverage already in print, I expect the press will report the motion and will use its own imagination about what the USB is. That is a foreseeable fact about third-party reporting of a public docket. It is not a threat.

Brian Evans, email to Thompson’s lawyer, exhibit in the September 3 filing

On the $2 million note, Evans said the message was a global settlement meant to resolve all cases, including cases raised after an earlier deal. He accused Thompson’s side of taking Rule 408 settlement communications and trying to annihilate his character to deflect from their own behavior. Scott is not a victim, he said. He also said Thompson has never filed an answer to the complaint. Thompson’s representative, Jami Schlicher, pointed instead to Evans’s record in federal court and said the findings speak for themselves.

The two men once worked on the same bill. Evans opened for Thompson at the Atrium Showroom in 2014 and again in 2015, and they cut music videos together, including a 2015 Bates Motel clip and a 2021 soccer jazz track that also featured Ice-T and Lou Diamond Phillips. Evans had a earlier Strip life as a crooner at the Desert Inn’s Starlight Lounge from 1998 to 2000, before that hotel came down for Wynn. He later ran for office in Hawaii. The professional help he says he was promised after the 2024 settlement is the wound he is still litigating.

A Federal Judge Already Flagged Serial Filings

Before the hospital week, Evans had already been in and out of the Southern District of Florida. The Evans v. Thompson federal docket shows he filed on July 8, 2026, before Judge Roy K. Altman, seeking to unwind a 2024 settlement and alleging fraudulent inducement and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He paid the $405 filing fee, demanded a jury, and immediately labeled motions as emergencies. Magistrate Judge Yeney Hernandez struck the emergency tag on July 10, writing that alleged financial harms did not warrant emergency treatment, and later denied him a volunteer lawyer. Altman adopted a report denying a temporary restraining order, then dismissed the case without prejudice on August 6 after Evans filed a notice of voluntary dismissal.

In a July 17 order, Altman struck a second notice of non-consent and warned that frivolous filings clog the docket. If he continues, the judge wrote, the court will impose sanctions, including dismissal. Schlicher said a federal court on September 4 declared Evans a vexatious litigant, described his filings as serial and spurious, and, in dismissing one case with prejudice, wrote that it appeared the entire case was designed to harass defendants. She added that the same court said Evans had filed no fewer than 15 pro se cases in that district since 2025, all of which appear frivolous. Evans has argued in his own papers that he is not a vexatious litigant in that court and that tallies of his cases mix duplicates, clerk errors, and dismissals without prejudice. Florida’s vexatious litigant statute is built for repeat filers; federal judges use inherent power and the All Writs Act for the same problem.

THE FLORIDA CALENDAR BEHIND FRIDAY

1. July 8, 2026: Evans files Evans v. Thompson in the Southern District of Florida, case 1:2026cv24682, asking a judge to undo the 2024 settlement.
2. August 6, 2026: Altman dismisses that federal case without prejudice after Evans notices a voluntary dismissal; Evans also files in Broward County that day.
3. September 3, 2026: Bitman files Thompson’s notice of alleged extortion, attaching the $500,000 Path A email and the USB-and-press language.
4. September 4, 2026: Schlicher says a federal judge brands Evans a vexatious litigant and cites 15 pro se cases since 2025 that appear frivolous.
5. September 14, 2026: Evans sends the $2 million global demand, with a Wednesday afternoon deadline; Thompson’s lawyer writes the Broward judge’s chambers the same day.
6. September 18, 2026: Fire crews reach Thompson’s Las Vegas house at 4:20 p.m., hours before the 8 p.m. Luxor curtain.

A 2024 settlement and a July 2024 addendum had already tried to buy peace around future professional help and entertainment opportunities. Evans has spent 2026 trying to knock that deal down, arguing he lacked capacity because of PTSD and depression, including stress he ties to the August 2023 Maui wildfires. He has also sued Creative Artists Agency and agent Steve Levine, claiming they tried to use the Thompson papers against him even though, he says, they never signed them. None of those files closed when the ambulance left the driveway.

Six Nights a Week at the Atrium Showroom

Thompson has headlined at Luxor since 2005, when he signed the deal that became the longest-running comedy residency in MGM Resorts history. He marked 20 years at the property in November 2025 and is contracted through 2030. The show is built on trunks of props swapped around the news cycle, a 75-minute set he has described as observational humor, dark humor, and Gallagher’s hardware in one body.

THE ATRIUM MACHINE

• The nights: Monday through Saturday at 8 p.m., with a short list of extra Sundays and a long list of dark blocks.
• The price: From $49.00 plus an $8.72 ticket service fee, or $57.72 before tax, on the hotel’s own page.
• The term: In the building since 2005, 20th anniversary in November 2025, papers through 2030.
• The gap: Official dark dates now cover September 18 to 22 and September 23 to 26.

That calendar is the quiet pressure under the hospital week. A residency that size does not travel. It repeats. When Thompson has talked about the job in recent years, he has sold the gift of being home after curtain, not the grind of six nights. The grind is still the job. Pull eight show nights out of that board and the machine is what you see, sitting idle under a pyramid while the headliner reads fan mail in a hospital room.

Brad Garrett, the Everybody Loves Raymond actor who also runs a comedy club on the MGM campus, posted a photograph with Thompson and Ray Romano and wrote that they were thanking their lucky stars he was okay. Please take this time to remember how appreciated and loved you are by so many, Garrett wrote, then joked that Romano was the exception, a long story. Whatever it takes, he added, they were there. You’re getting a second chance for a reason. Use it wisely.

The Court File Did Not Pause With the Show

Schlicher’s Monday note is still the last word on Thompson’s body. He is awake. He is breathing on his own. He is not home, and Luxor has not posted him back on the board. The Broward file and the leftover federal record are not on a medical clock. Evans is representing himself. Thompson’s lawyers are still calling the USB language a threat. Evans is still calling it a settlement offer and saying the tape is gone.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 for support, or use the confidential chat at 988lifeline.org. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is staffed 24 hours a day in the United States. Thompson’s family has asked for privacy while he recovers. The Atrium Showroom, for now, stays dark through September 26, and the Florida docket does not care that the trunk is shut.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a public hospitalization, public court filings, and public statements. It is informational only and is not medical, mental-health, or legal advice, and it does not diagnose Thompson or judge the merits of the Florida cases. Readers who are in distress, or who are worried about someone else, should contact a qualified clinician or crisis counselor, and anyone with a legal question should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction. Names, figures, show dates, and case statuses reflect the filings and statements available on September 22, 2026, and those facts can change as doctors, courts, and the hotel update the record.