Obama Impersonator Denies He Got Booted Off Stage for Jabbing Republicans

This weekend, and odd piece of video surfaced from the Republican Leadership Conference in Louisiana. There, it appeared that an Obama impersonator sanctioned by the conference was publicly shamed when he was booted off the stage as soon as his jokes turned from targeting the president and instead lampooned Republicans.

According to to impersonator Reggie Brown, that's not really what happened.

"When our liaison—they guy who introduced me–came up to me onstage, he said, 'Hey, I am sorry—your time is up,'" Brown told CNN, "and so I finished and went backstage. I was told it was because of my time, not my act, not because of anything I said."

In an on-camera interview, he said he didn't have to get his jokes approved beforehand and that the conference knew what it was getting when it booked him. He also took umbrage with people using the term "yanked" to describe what happened:

You can read his full answer from the CNN blog below:

I think I delivered a great performance, and when I got offstage, as I exited, the audience the responded well. The organizers complimented me. They had a great time. I thought it was a great performance. Then we went back to read what a few people had written on blogs and there was a different story.

What happened is that I went over my minutes. They told me I had 20, but they aired a video before me and then my intro took up more time. When our liaison—they guy who introduced me–came up to me onstage, he said, “Hey, I am sorry—your time is up," and so I finished and went backstage. I was told it was because of my time, not my act, not because of anything I said.

I got a lot of fan mail this weekend, a lot of support, a lot of people subscribing to my Twitter and YouTube accounts, and the phone’s been ringing off the hook.

Brown added that he did still get paid for the appearance.

Meanwhile, during an appearance on MSNBC, Brown defended himself against claims that his Obama jokes were over the line:

It's still too early to tell who might be more upset that Brown didn't get "yanked." If you're of the persuasion that Brown's jokes were over the line, maybe you would have liked the story to read that he got canned. But it seems more likely that it will be liberals who will be upset by Brown's new revelation. They would love to characterize the GOP as a hypocritical, snooty bunch of powdered wigs who will stand for jokes about Obama but will kill jokes about themselves.

Either way, neither seems to have happened in this case.