The Amazing Johnathan, the ‘Freddy Krueger of comedy,’ dead at 63
nypost.comPenny Wiggins, 60, posted on Facebook. “My heart is broken. One of my best friends, one of the funniest humans I’ve ever met.
I loved him so very much and will never forget this wonderful, amazing, kind, funny, great person.”Detroit native Szeles gained mainstream fame on Vegas headliner Criss Angel’s mid-2000s reality TV show “Mindfreak,” and often injected gonzo, faux-gore bits into his shows.
Signature shock value moments included pretending to suck on his own dangling eyeball, slitting his wrists and spiking his own tongue.The Bally’s casino star attraction and Comedy Central staple — who reportedly earned $3 million a year at his peak — was diagnosed in March 2007 with “a serious heart condition,” the Las Vegas Journal review reported at the time. “I was told I have a year to live,” he announced during a public appearance in 2014.
The audience, assuming the dark declaration was another of his pranks, started to laugh — but he stopped them: “Not a joke,” he confirmed, his voice cracking.His official website later identified the illness as cardiomyopathy and announced that, thanks to a combination of weight loss and blood thinners, his health was improving.The “alt-magician” gained further notoriety as the subject of a controversial 2019 Hulu documentary, “The Amazing Johnathan Documentary.” The film followed Szeles, then 60, as he mounted a comeback tour after defying his terminal illness diagnosis — and simultaneously dealing with an ongoing drug addiction.
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