Bernie Mac Retiring From Stand-up Comedy

By Quibian Salazar-Moreno

      After 30 years of going from city-to-city making people laugh with his down home jokes, Bernie Mac announced that he’s retiring from doing stand-up comedy. The comedian went on the David Letterman show this week and announced his decision.

      "I’m going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."

      Mac plans on doing one more stand-up comedy film, “The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me Mac,” that will hit theatres sometime this fall, and that will be it.

      “You miss out on so much, you know, and you live in all these hotels — I was on the road 47 weeks out of the year," Mac said. “Comedy has been so good to me. And that’s all I ever wanted, watching you guys. I had great mentors — Jackie Gleason, Flip (Wilson), Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Buddy Hackett. I had so many people to watch, that today you don’t have that anymore."