February 08 2026, 08:15 
Creative Artists Agency, the mega Hollywood talent agency, is backing right-wing comedian Ben Bankas in his fight with a Minnesota comedy club.
Laugh Camp in St. Paul canceled Bankas’ three-night run following an offensive riff on Renee Good that went viral.
Related
Don Lemon’s arrest involved a gay journalist & conservative church. That’s no coincidence.
CAA, which represents the comic, is demanding full compensation for the canceled shows because Bankas was prepared to perform, according to Laugh Camp owner Bill Collins.
Good, 37, was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent on January 7 as her wife watched in horror.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
Collins also said that CAA has barred its other clients from booking the club until the dispute is resolved.
Two of CAA’s four co-chairmen, Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, are gay.
“Honestly, I don’t see any way we can safely present this show in the current climate,” club owner Collins told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune earlier this week, before he shared his decision with ticket holders and how they can get refunds. “I’m not sure any amount of security or preplanning would mitigate the liability I’d face if something happened.”
Collins, who’s operated the club since 2007, said the cancellations could cost him about $17,000 in refunds.
Bankas shared his Renee Good set on Instagram after he delivered it in Poughkeepsie, New York, two days after Good was killed. It went viral in the aftermath.
“Yeah, her last name is Good,” Bankas says from the stage, sipping a Coors Light. “That’s what I said after they shot her in the face.”
“I didn’t hate her,” Bankas adds. “I didn’t know her. I mean, now that I know her, I hate her.”
“They didn’t shoot her right away,” Bankas says of ICE, “because they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s a dumb, crazy
“They’re gonna get shirts,” Bankas predicts. “‘I am Renee Good. I am a dumb ret**ded lesbian.’ Get your shirts right now: BenBankas.com.”
“My jaw just dropped,” said Bailey Murphy, who teaches improv classes at Laugh Camp. “I wouldn’t even claim it was comedy. He’s just a bully with a microphone.”
Bankas, a Canadian from Toronto with appearances on Jesse Watters’ Fox News show and the Kill Tony podcast among his credits, shared news of the cancellation during a show in Washington, D.C., this week.
“I just found out that my shows were canceled in Minnesota,” he told the audience to boos. “Well, yeah. F*ck ’em, honestly.”
“They were pussying out ’cause they got a weird voicemail from a liberal,” Bankas said, before whining in a fey voice: “‘Are you really gonna have a guy on your f*cking stage that made a joke about f*cking Renee Good? Whaaa!'”
“F*cking pathetic,” he said of the same fey liberals complaining about Trump’s D.C. occupation.
According to Bankas, “normal and good” Minnesotans will be deprived of the chance “to laugh at some f*cked up s**t” in his absence. “Good people deserve to f*ckin laugh,” he said, before comparing the Laugh Camp to Auschwitz.
“‘Ben’s gonna come here and make us feel like everything’s gonna be okay, and everything’s gonna be normal,'” Bankas imagined his now-disappointed fans saying.
The Minnesotans who threatened to protest his shows would have had a different message: nothing is normal in Minnesota right now.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.