Comedian Chris DiStefano Tells Joe Rogan About Insane Moment His Father Threatened to Bust Principal’s Kneecaps After Expulsion
Comedian Chris DiStefano explained to Joe Rogan the insane story of his ‘mob-like’ father threatening his principal after DiStefano was kicked out of his Catholic New York City high school, days after 9/11.
Speaking on Tuesday’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, DiStefano, who was 17 at the time, said his mother worked in downtown New York City in the second tower that was hit on 9/11. When he got news of the attack in school, he began to cry, not knowing if she had survived.
Some of the kids in his class made fun of him and he promptly hit one of them over the head with a chair, landing the kid in a coma and sent to the hospital. DiStefano was expelled and was reunited with his mother later that evening.
But two days later, when New York schools opened back up following the attacks, DiStefano was confused to discover that he was still suspended despite the emotional circumstance surrounding the incident. So he turned to the one person he knew could help him, his father.
“Great guy, my father. Really great guy, but you know, a street guy, like a Bronx real street guy,” he said. “I call my father from a payphone and I’m like, ‘Dad, I’m sorry, I let you down. But on Tuesday I was just worried about my mom and this kid started laughing at me. I was crying and I broke a chair over this kid Frank’s head and they threw me out –‘ and he goes ‘Did anybody see you do it?’
DiStefano begins to explain that dozens of kids and teachers watched the event unfold. But this could not dissuade his father who would arrive at the school and gives his son one simple instruction, “You do everything I tell you to do.” The two then proceed to storm into the principal’s office, unannounced.
“He just opens his door and the principal’s on the phone. And my dad goes, ‘Can I speak to you? Can we speak to you? I’m Chris’s dad.’ And the principal’s like ‘You need a meeting, sir,'” DiStefano said. “Then he hangs up the principal’s phone. He just puts his fingers on the receiver and he goes, ‘You’re not on the phone anymore.'”
The two men begin to argue back and forth before the principal got angry, telling DiStefano’s father, ‘Sir, are you stupid or something? He’s expelled from school!'”
DiStefano recalled his father instructing him to lock the door of the principal’s office to which he did.
Then, DiStefano’s father proceeds to give the principal two simple options, “He goes, ‘The first option, just put my son back in school Okay. Easy breezy, No problems, I’ll sign, whatever forms you want. He goes back to school. — The second option. — I’m gonna come over there and I’m gonna break both your kneecaps. — You may think I heard that line in a movie. — I’m one of the guys they write the movies about.'”
DiStefano remembers the principal turning white at the threat and reluctantly agreeing to allow him back on campus to finish his senior year.
Listen via The Joe Rogan Experience.
—
