never been fearful of the stage. I just never thought it was something that I could do to put food on the table be my livelihood.
I ended up going to open mic and had no idea what I was doing but was funny. I got a lesson the first day on stage that probably takes many years for comics to learn. At that very moment, I realized that what is ‘real’ is funny, and audiences can tell when you're faking it. They can tell when you're not invested in what you're saying. I went up there trying to tell jokes, and the audience was just staring at me like: ‘What is she doing?’ I panicked and was like, “Look, I don't need none of this for real, because I work for the circus, and the audience busted out laughing. I said, “Nah, for real, for real. I work for Ringling Brothers, but I‘m not out there training monkeys or nothing.” I'm panicking, and the audience is laughing because I'm literally in a panic mode trying to explain to them: “Look, I'm not up here because I need this.” It hit me that this is just funny, out the gate.