CNN —
In the 11 years she’s been doing Standup, this was by far the worst heckler Ariel Elias had ever encountered.
The comedian’s Oct. 8 performance at Uncle Vinnie’s Comedy Club in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey started like any other, so she never expected to become the subject of a viral video and is the latest example of that taking the comedy stage incident becomes the scene of uncertainty.
Elias had spent most of her 20-minute set talking about female body image before beginning a pre-planned question-and-answer portion of her set. A joke she ends with appears on some merchandise she sells after the show.
Then a woman in the audience, sitting at a large table with people attending a noisy birthday party, yelled at her on stage, “Did you vote for Trump?”
“I didn’t talk about politics,” she tells CNN. “I think I’ve been honest about my period. It just felt like she was looking for a fight and I really don’t think I did anything to bring that on.
The woman was kicked out. Then the man next to her threw a beer can—quickly—at Elias’ head.
In the video of the moment mentioned above, many in the audience react with shock.
Elias says she didn’t see the beer fly past her head, but she heard it rumble loudly behind her.
“I just loved hearing it on the wall and then I felt the backs of my legs getting wet and I was trying to figure out what happened,” she says. “And then I looked down and I saw the beer can and put it together and people were angry that that happened, which was nice. So I’m glad I didn’t get overwhelmed by a mob mentality.”
At that moment she picked up the can and found that it was still full of beer.
“I remember thinking, ‘Don’t let the adrenaline win. Take a sip. Be brave,’” she says. “When I thought there was still beer in there, I was like, guess what? I had never needed a drink more in my life. And I think that’s the only way to get out of there because I’ve got five minutes left on my set.”
She knows she had the option to step down from the stage and that “no one would have been mad at me.” But, she thought, what about her stickers?
“I sell merch after the show and my best selling sticker is based on my closing joke. I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got to make the joke if I want people to come and buy stickers afterwards.'”
So she was done.
Later, Elias says, “It was a lot scarier when I got home.” She had to watch the video to realize how hard and fast the beer had been thrown.
“To be honest, I’m not the best at processing my emotions. So I think maybe six days from now I’ll be crying while watching ‘Man vs. Food,'” she says, laughing.
Her friends and family have supported her; Her parents told her they were proud and her fellow comics keep checking in on her.
“Last night I did some spots around town and everyone was like, ‘Are you okay?’ I think that’s exactly the question I need to be asked,” she says. “Because the answer is, I don’t know yet.”
While Elias has chosen not to press charges, the comedy club does. And while she doesn’t want to go back to the town where it happened, Elias says she absolutely loves doing standup and will keep going.
“Please don’t throw things at me,” she says. “I love getting up. It’s my favorite thing in the world. I love traveling and being in front of people who are different from me.”