Russell Brand yells at 'Katy Perry' heckler - video
The audience member was said to have repeatedly shouted Brand's ex-wife's name during his routine in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Saturday night (May 5).
Rex Features / MARCOCCHI GIULIO/SIPA/Rex Features
An witness told Life & Style: "This guy randomly yelled out, 'Katy Perry', and at first Russell didn't make much of it. But in a little while, he did it again and Russell lost it.
"He actually climbed down off the stage, made the crew turn the house lights up and told the audience to point the guy out.
"He tore into him for maybe three or four minutes, standing right there in the middle of the crowd with the lights up."
Brand told the man: "You look like something that's fallen off the side of a church. And what is it that you have rattling around in your mind? Some bizarre combination of alcohol and idiocy. Some cocktail of nothing. And yet you have the confidence to continue shouting."
"He went on to attack everything from how good he thought the guy would be in bed to accusing him of being impotent," the witness added.
"Eventually he pulled it together and got back on the stage, and being Russell, he told the guy he'd just tore apart that he loved him."
However, some fans have instead suggested that the heckler was shouting "God save the Queen."
Brand and Perry, who married in October 2010 in a lavish Indian ceremony, filed for divorce in December 2011.
Watch Russell Brand react to the heckler in a fan-shot video below (warning: explicit language):