Nikki Glaser Would Be Disappointed in Herself Too, If She Weren’t So Damn Funny

Glaser knows that’s the roaster’s paradox. “It’s the risk you take,” she says. “That’s what this is. You have to dish it out, you have to take it.”

Glaser certainly proved she can dish it out, ripping Tom Brady a new one without ever having met the man. “My first time meeting him was when I was up on the podium,” she says. “That’s the first time I’ve ever talked to him. We didn’t meet backstage. We didn’t have a Zoom call. There was no preface to this. Which made it easier to go hard.”

Now it’s safe to say Brady knows who she is. “Tom Brady knows my name now,” she says in disbelief. “In his joke, he didn’t say it fully, but he said ‘Glaser.’ He said it right.” It’s clear that Glaser is still processing her whirlwind week. “I will never get this much attention until I die,” she says. “I have an inkling of what it feels like to be Taylor Swift on a really slow day for her.”

But being Taylor Swift on a slow day is still life-changing for Glaser, who has been a professional comedian for more than 20 years. “I ascended in my career more than I ever have, overnight,” she says. “It just doesn’t happen today with how oversaturated the content is—that all eyes are on something like this.” She adds a joke for good measure. “Outside of Will Smith slapping me, I don’t think I’ll get this much attention as a comedian in my life.”

Matt Winkelmeyer/Netflix.

Glaser’s timing couldn’t be better. Her next comedy special, Someday You’ll Die, drops on HBO this Saturday, May 11. In the special, the 39-year-old comedian loudly and proudly declares that she never wants to have kids, expressing her raw, unfiltered emotions about aging and motherhood the only way she knows how. “My truth is that I don’t have kids, and I really do get jealous when my friends have babies because I don’t see them anymore,” she tells VF. “The funniest take on that for me is when my friends are trying, I’m like, Please don’t let this one take. It’s a funny thing to admit because it’s insane, but I can’t help that it did enter my brain. Like, Oh, I want her to have a kid. Just not yet, because we have a girl’s trip coming up.”

That’s not to say Someday You’ll Die is only about one thing. In the special, Glaser wisecracks about topics included but not limited to abortion, suicide, autism, gang bangs, heroin, and, yes, there’s even a non-terrible trans joke or two. In an age where stalwart comedians like Jerry Seinfeld continually lament so-called PC culture and what they see as the corresponding death of comedy, Glaser is proof that you can still say basically anything you want, as long as it’s funny.

“It’s funny that Jerry says that because he’s a clean comedian,” she says. “Who is he offending? I don’t know. He’s mastered the art of being clean, and is as funny as any comic who’s dirty.” Glaser says that she longs to have the type of clean and accessible comedy act that is de rigueur for Seinfeld, but it’s just not in the cards for her. “I can be very filthy and I can be very dark, so I sense that I turn people off a lot,” she says. “But I know at my core, I’m a good person. So if I’m joking about stuff, it’s just because it’s true and I want to draw attention to it.”

“It’s not about wanting to hurt people’s feelings,” she adds. “I want everyone to see what’s going on. Let’s talk about slaves making our clothes. Open your eyes. Making a joke about them is not going to make them any more slaves than they are. It actually might draw more awareness to it, even though it is under the guise of a joke. At least just acknowledge that slaves made your clothes by laughing at this joke, because it is happening and you know it.”

The intersection of truth and comedy has long been a hot-button issue, particularly as comics like Hasan Minhaj come under fire for embellishing or fabricating stories they tell in their stand-up. Glaser isn’t interested in storytelling comedians—“I just do not have the patience for it”—but she is interested in truth, even if it’s at times unflattering. “I’m never really lying on stage,” Glaser says. “People can go, ‘Oh, she’s just hyperbolizing for the sake of comedy.’ But I’m not really. Yes, I do turn it up a notch, but it should be obvious, the things in the story I’m lying about. To a savvy consumer of stand-up comedy, you should be able to tell where I’m doing a punch line and then where there is actual storytelling happening.”