Ahead of DNC Speech, a Look at Bill Clinton's Past Run-Ins With Hecklers

It's Bill Clinton's big night. The former president will take the stage as the highlighted speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia tonight, following a tense first day marked by heckling and protests.

Bill Clinton cheered on his fellow Democrats from the private suites and the skybox during some of the prime-time speeches Monday night. But the mere mention of his wife and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, riled up clusters of Bernie Sanders supporters who relentlessly booed.

The speakers have largely ignored the heckling while on stage, and Bill Clinton may face the same protesters during his speech tonight. But the former president is no stranger to those who disagree with him or badmouth his spouse. In fact, rather than ignore them, he often engages demonstrators, sometimes asking them questions about what they are protesting or even downright arguing with them.

In April, Bill Clinton had a tense and prolonged exchange with Black Lives Matter protesters at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Philadelphia. The demonstrators held signs that read "Black youth are not super predators," "Clinton's crime bill destroyed our communities" and "Welfare reform increased poverty." They continuously interrupted the former president, questioning the aftershocks of his 1994 crime bill, which imposed tougher prison sentences and gave money for tens of thousands of police officers and drug courts, among other things. He spent the majority of his speech arguing.

A day later, Bill Clinton stopped short of apologizing to the Black Lives Matter protesters when he explained that attacks on his wife are personal and he prefers not to talk over people.

"I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past [the protester] the way she was talking past me. We got to stop that in this country. We got to listen to each other again," he said to another Pennsylvania crowd.

Coal miners in states like West Virginia and Kentucky have also picketed Bill Clinton's events on the campaign trail. He has directly addressed them during his speeches, attempting to heal their wounds cut open by rapid job loss and a drug addiction epidemic. He regularly claims that Hillary Clinton will be there for the "left out and left behind" if she's elected president.

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have been vocal too. In February, a man holding a Trump sign interrupted a Hillary Clinton rally where Bill Clinton was speaking and accused the former president of taking money from the real estate mogul. Bill Clinton fired back: "I certainly did. I took his money for my foundation and used it better than he's using it now."

Bill Clinton got into another heated exchange at a campaign event in February in South Carolina with a man claiming to be a military veteran. The protester repeatedly interrupted his speech and brought up the 2012 terror attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans. Hillary Clinton was serving as U.S. secretary of state at the time.

The back-and-forth quickly escalated into a shouting match. As security escorted the man and another protester out of the event, Bill Clinton yelled: "Do you have the courage to listen to my answer? Don't throw him out. If he'll shut up and listen to my answer, I'll answer it."

The next day, Bill Clinton addressed another crowd in Florida and encouraged people to have healthy debate. He claimed that protesters like the those in South Carolina were trained to not let people answer them.

"I let them make their point twice, both of them, and I tried to answer and they just kept screaming because they were afraid of the answer. We can't be like that," he said.

Bill Clinton has admitted to being quite the protester himself back in college, which is why he welcomes it. However, he has said he does expect to be able to speak and explain his position once the protesters make their point.

The former president may encounter protests yet again tonight -- this time from Sanders supporters who are still fuming over internal Democratic National Committee emails released by WikiLeaks that appear to show party officials strategizing how to harm the Vermont senator politically during the primaries. Sanders, who has not technically dropped out of the race, delivered a much anticipated address at the convention last night that was met with an odd mix of cheers, boos and chants when he said Hillary Clinton "would make an outstanding president."

Speaking at conventions is nothing new for Bill Clinton, of course. Tonight will mark his 10th consecutive convention address.

A party official close to Bill Clinton told ABC News the former president is immensely proud of his wife and will be speaking from the heart tonight. He'll be promoting Hillary Clinton's days as a child advocacy lawyer, her policy campaigns as first lady and her work as a New York senator, the official said.

A Clinton aide told ABC News that he has been working hard writing the speech and is aware of the importance it holds.

"President Clinton is still working on the speech, which he's writing himself," the aide said. "He thinks that it's important for other people to know the secretary as well as he does. So tonight's speech will very much be a personal one for him."