Lisa Lampanelli has a new comedy special, and it’s less about fucking black guys—a big part of Lampanelli’s schtick—and more about her personal struggles: Turning 50, getting a divorce, living through both bariatric surgery and taking up yoga. Sporting an edgy haircut (think Suze Ormond at a punk show) and tight jeans instead of the flowing skirts she’s worn in comedy specials before, Lampanelli spends the set talking about why it’s hard to see herself naked in the mirror—no one her age, she says, should be seen outside of their clothes—and how she feels about Bill Cosby and Honey Boo Boo’s mother. Her racial jokes, still present, seem almost perfunctory—a way to keep the audience focused on the old while she slips in the new.
The title of Lampanelli’s special, premiering Friday night on Epix, is Back to the Drawing Board, and it does seem like a new beginning or at least a moderate evolution. Fans of Lampanelli’s older work are likely to be surprised by the show’s storytelling as well as its liberal political message. Those tuning in to see Lampanelli spout off racial epithet after racial epithet might be disappointed by how infrequently the comedian throws down a “chink” or a “dirty Jew” during the hour-long set. But that’s okay, Lampanelli says, when we talk on the phone. She’s never going to change her act based on what anyone thinks.Were you trying to show the audience a different facet of yourself by talking more openly about your own life?
Yes. I think I need to really show them who I am in order for them to feel better about themselves. I feel like I’ve been asked a lot of questions over the last few years about the weight loss and weight struggles and about divorce and relationships and I’m like, You know what? I’m going to put out there what I’m been thinking about and working on and seeing if it could affect somebody else.
You mention in the special that the first thing people say to you now is “Lisa Lampanelli, you must be so thrilled about your new look!”
It is kind of cute when people say that. I do like the way I look—from the neck down in clothes—and that’s pretty much how everybody sees me anyway, so that’s fine. Thank God nobody sees me naked, as you know.
You talk about your divorce, the weight loss, you’re off sugar, you’re doing a yoga retreat. This is all new territory. You told Yahoo that audiences stopped giving you standing ovations with your old material in the end of 2013.
No, I said they started giving me standing Os. They started giving them to me as I sort of revealed more about myself.
Oh, okay.
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