Comedian Lisa Lampanelli explains why she unloaded on a heckler at her stand-up show

A day after she was caught swearing at a heckler in a viral video, comedian Lisa Lampanelli shared her side of the story with TMZ Monday. 

Setting up the scene for her interviewer, Lampanelli said, "I'm having a conversation with a woman on the other end of the crowd. This guy yelled something to get my attention, and totally interrupted the flow with the person I was talking to, which I hate because that person paid, too."

She continued, "So I said, 'Wait, wait wait. Let me go back to this guy. So I went over there because it really annoys me when people try to cut me off when I'm trying to have a totally civil conversation."

In the original video from her set at the City National Civic in San Jose, Calif., which was also published by TMZ, Lampanelli offered to give the man back the money for his ticket if he'd leave, saying, “If you’re going to (expletive) talk (expletive) to me at my own show, (expletive), I will give you personally your money back because I don’t need to work for people.". 

When he offered her $100 to "shut the (expletive) up," she threw his money back at him and told him to leave.

"Everyone was having fun" until that point, the comedian said, reminding the gossip outlet that she specializes in insults. "If you want me to be 100% serious, when one guy does that, the other people who paid money really don't have the same enjoyment. I figured I would cut out the cancer, and unfortunately, the cancer kept growing in the form of this large man, who nobody kicked out."

Lampanelli, 56, also cited menopause and sexism as underlying causes of the incident and noted that if it ever happens again, she promises to switch up her obscenities. ("Honestly, I do know more words than the F-word," she said.)

But she won't be silenced.

"Nowadays, more and more people are telling women to shut up," she noted in her  follow-up interview "So guess who's going to have a bigger mouth than ever? Lisa Lampanelli." 

Finding a silver lining in the whole mess, Lampanelli added, "I liked that video, though, because I look really skinny."