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Hazbin Hotel’s Alex Brightman recalls his embarrassing Beetlejuice blunder that haunts him on the internet to this day

What happens when you forget your lines in front of 14,000 people? If you’re Hazbin Hotel’s Alex Brightman, you recite gibberish

What’s more embarrassing than forgetting your lines in front of 14,000 people? Having it recorded and immortalized on YouTube.

Years before joining the cast of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, Alex Brightman played the title character in the Broadway play Beetlejuice. Brightman has fond memories of his time as the Ghost with the Most, but there’s one performance that still makes him cringe.

“During Beetlejuice in the opening number, I say a lot of lines in quick succession, and I was spot on for about 99.9% of the show,” Brightman recalls during the Hazbin Hotel panel this weekend at Emerald City Comic Con 2025. “One performance, which was recorded by someone very near the front row, I was supposed to say one line, and to this day right now, I can’t remember what it was because it’s been a while. It’s in the opening number, and I’m supposed to say something like, ‘Snow more that, no more something something.’”

“That evening, right before that line, I’m standing on a coffin, and I think to myself as I’m saying this line, the one I’m currently saying, in my head I’m going, ‘I don’t even know at all what comes next.’ And I’ve done the show like 600 times, and not only do I not know the line, I don’t know where I am. I have no idea what’s going on. There’s nothing in my head completely. Usually, I’m pretty good at like futzing a word out here and there to make something rhyme, because I’ve done improv my entire life. This particular performance, which you can find on YouTube, I say, and I’m quoting, ‘[mutters gibberish],’” Brightman recalls.

“I’ve been nominated for two awards, there were 14,000 paying people in the audience, spending money they could very easily have spent on a mortgage or a car payment, and I’m up there spitting gibberish at the beginning of the show. The amount of internal sweating I did for the rest of that show trying to make it up for this one audience. And I’m like, well the great news is it’s live theater, it can only happen once and nobody ever gets to see it again. Somebody sends me the video. It’s so embarrassing and wonderful at the same time.”

If you’re curious, here’s a link to the video. In fairness to Brightman, spitting nonsense is on brand for Beetlejuice.

You can watch Welcome to the Chaos: Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss with Alex Brightman and Brandon Rogers' on the ECCC 2025 Main Stage powered by Xfinity for yourself as part of Popverse's all-encompasing coverage of Emerald City Comic Con 2025. Be there from anywhere.


Here's how to watch Hazbin Hotel (and all its spinoffs) in order.

 

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Joshua Lapin-Bertone

Joshua Lapin-Bertone: Joshua is a pop culture writer specializing in comic book media. His work has appeared on the official DC Comics website, the DC Universe subscription service, HBO Max promotional videos, the Batman Universe fansite, and more. In between traveling around the country to cover various comic conventions, Joshua resides in Florida where he binges superhero television and reads obscure comics from yesteryear.

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