Brooke Shields 'freaks out' over jokes about the dead

New York, Aug 12 : American actress Brooke Shields showed her dislike for jokes aimed at dead people by getting up from her seat at a recent comedy competition.

Shields had dropped in at the Upright Citizen's Brigade theatre over the weekend to be a panellist during a 72-hour marathon of comedy sketches, but "freaked out" when some jokes turned crass, revealed a witness.

"Everything was going great until three comics came out, each playing a dead star," New York Daily News quoted the eyewitness as saying.

"One was playing Heath Ledger as the Joker, and he just kept listing prescription pills he had in his pocket. Another was playing Estelle Getty, and the third was Bernie Mac's ghost," the eyewitness said.

It was at this point that Shields stopped smiling and left to watch the show from backstage.

"She was so freaked out, her eyes welled up, and she actually bit her nails at one point," the witness stated.

"When someone pretended to dump Estelle Getty's ashes on ["30 Rock" star] Jack McBrayer's head, Brooke got up and walked offstage. She watched the rest of the show from behind a curtain backstage, with a grimace," added the witness.

Shields' spokesman said she left to talk to the writers before she was about to go on, and it wasn't all of the evening's performers who found humour in the unsavoury topic.

Comic Seth Morris started to make a Mac joke, but was quickly put in his place by "The Office" star Ed Helms, who was manning a puppet from behind a table.

"Ed cut him off quickly and said, 'I'd love to see how you're going to make this funny,' with his puppet," the witness said.

"It stopped Seth right in his tracks," the witness added.

ANI