Quick answer: On The Joe Rogan Experience #2575, comedian Sam Tallent called Kill Tony's show at London's O2 arena "the worst thing that's ever happened to me as an artist." He says he'd been told Piers Morgan would be the night's guest, wrote about 30 minutes of jokes for him, and then went out alone to a crowd that was waiting for a British celebrity. Kill Tony played the O2 on June 7, 2025.
Source: The Joe Rogan Experience #2575, Sam Tallent, clipped as a YouTube Short.
Who is Sam Tallent?
Sam Tallent is a stand-up comic from Colorado and a longtime regular on Kill Tony, the live comedy podcast hosted by Tony Hinchcliffe. He's also a novelist. His first book, Running the Light, follows a touring comic on the road, and his new novel Brut is part of what he talked about with Joe Rogan on episode #2575, released Nov. 3, 2026.
"Buried in the desert"
Tallent brings up the O2 show while talking about arena comedy. "I did the one at the O2 in London that no one will ever see, 'cause it was so bad," he says. "That had to be buried in the desert."
Kill Tony did play The O2 in London for one night, Saturday, June 7, 2025. It was the show's first London date in years. Fans who were there have said online that Tallent was the headline guest and that the crowd was rowdy. Whether the episode was ever meant to come out is Tallent's account. RealNameOf couldn't find an official release of a full O2 episode.
The Piers Morgan jokes
By Tallent's telling, the night was chaos before it started. He says there were fist fights in the crowd and people were thrown out "for doing cocaine at their seats like at Studio 54." Those are his claims, and we couldn't confirm them.
Then came the billing. "I was told Piers Morgan was going to do it," Tallent says. So he wrote "about 30 minutes of funny Piers Morgan jokes." Morgan couldn't make it. "So it's just Sam Tallent," he says. "And when they say Sam Tallent, people are like, 'All right, cool,' and they're waiting for someone else, probably a British celebrity. No, no, it's just me."
Five minutes in the mirror
The part that sticks is what happened after. "I went into the green room and literally put my hands on the sink and stared into the mirror for like five minutes," Tallent says. "And I was like, do I want this? Do I aspire to be an arena act?"
He also describes a cake brought out for Hinchcliffe, whose birthday is June 8, the day after the show. In Tallent's telling, the cake celebrated a sellout and called Kill Tony "the number one selling podcast in the history of the O2 arena." Everyone sang happy birthday, and then Tallent heard Hinchcliffe say, "They spelled my name wrong."
"Bro, this is like all of your dreams coming true," Tallent says. "And I was like, OK, I got to figure out what I actually want to do."
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Why it matters to Tallent
It's a funny story, but it's also a real question for a comic who writes novels about the road. Kill Tony has grown from a small club show into arena tours, and Tallent has been part of that ride for years. His takeaway from the O2 isn't that the show is bad. It's that a huge room isn't automatically the goal.
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FAQ
When did Kill Tony play the O2 in London? On Saturday, June 7, 2025, for one night.
Was Piers Morgan on Kill Tony at the O2? No. Sam Tallent says he was told Morgan would appear, but Morgan couldn't make it.
Who is Sam Tallent? A stand-up comedian from Colorado, a Kill Tony regular, and the author of the novels Running the Light and Brut.
Did Kill Tony release the O2 London episode? Tallent says no one will ever see it. We couldn't find an official full release.