A woman who went viral for her impromptu stand-up performance at a Los Angeles screening of "The Lost City" said she decided to entertain the crowd on a dare from her 8-year-old daughter.
Tiffany King, a stand-up comic and psychic medium, said during a Wednesday screening at the AMC in Burbank, Calif., the projector broke down and the air conditioner went out. As the crowd waited, King decided to go to the front of the room and start telling jokes to entertain the restless audience.
"My daughter dared me to go do stand up," King, who is also the founder of non-profit Momic Productions, which supports women in the arts, said. "I did it to be fun and to make my daughter smile."
Her bit has since gone viral, with many recirculating a clip shared by someone in the theater on Twitter. It's racked up nearly a million views since being shared Wednesday afternoon.
AMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At first, King said she told the crowd she was just kidding and that she's a comedian. But when she went to sit back down, someone asked her to "tell a joke," she said.
So, she did a stand-up set that lasted about 15 minutes.
Although one person heckled her, asking someone to "put us out of our misery," King said people in the front row were receptive to have some form of entertainment as they waited for the film.
It's rare that King, a single mother, gets to do comedy, she said. So with a captive audience watching the clock until their movie started, she said she wanted to seize the moment to help make the crowd and her daughter laugh.
King hasn't watched the viral video. However, she said she's noticed an influx of followers and comments, both positive and negative, on her social media accounts.
"To do comedy, it takes consistency and as a single mother, that's one thing I haven't had on my side," King said. "I know how hard comedy is, so I'm happy I did it, and I don't care what the negative stuff is."
