Lina Lecaro“Comedian and strippers… we go hand in hand,” comic Whitney Cummings tells us during a recent phone chat about her new OnlyFans TV project. “Our self esteem is too low to get naked in front of people, so we keep our clothes on and exploit our emotions and our personal lives.”
Cummings’ reverence for sex work and content isn’t too much of a surprise if you know her standup, which explores everything from awkward intercourse positions to her personal body parts, via frank and shamelessly funny anecdotes. The best comedians push the boundaries, but she says in recent years some comics’ takes on adult entertainment and female performers hit her the wrong way. So when OnlyFans (the internet subscription service known mostly for paying people for their self-created porn and nudes) approached her about working together she was all for it, plus, “anywhere that Cardi B goes, I go!”
She did a show for Showtime a few years back called “Live Nude Comedy,” featuring dancers and comics, and she says her favorite entertainment in L.A. (where she lives) is the saucy and multifaceted stuff, like Jumbos Clown Room and Lucha Va Voom’s mash of Mexican Wrestling and burlesque. So when she started feeling like comedy was getting stifled, she pulled from what she enjoyed as a spectator. With several raucous Comedy Central “roasts” under her belt, revisiting this format for OFTV (the free streaming offshoot of OnlyFans) made sense, but she wanted to do it her way.
(Courtesy OFTV)
“What happened to the fun, silly insanity, you know, and sort of the more chaotic, spontaneous nature of comedy in general?” she poses. “I did the roasts but once they started becoming televised and getting really mainstream and involving celebrities, not just comics, it wasn’t the same. With comics, it’s like boxing or verbal MMA. That’s what you’re watching. We’re firing at each other. But when you have a heavyweight fighter fighting a featherweight, it feels mean and not fair. I did a roast of David Hasselhoff and heavyweight comics were sparring with Pam Anderson. Not that she’s not tough as nails, but she seemed uncomfortable… I was sick to my stomach afterwards.”
For Cummings’ take on hot seat humor, she invited someone she knew could handle whatever she and her friends could dish out. The OnlyFans Roast of Bert Kreischer, which is available to stream now, truly feels like a party– with lots of popping off, of course. A “white trash” themed bash, if the trucker caps and cheap beer decor is any indication, the roast features the likes of Jim Norton, Tom Segura, Big Jay Oakerson, Tony Hinchcliffe, Rachel Feinstein, Donnell Rawlings, Trevor Wallace skewering the popular funnyman. Nobody holds back on Kreischer cracks, but there is an overall vibe of love and mutual respect for the art of crafting sick burns and low blows.
“Roasts started becoming more of a PR move,” Cummings notes. “It started becoming a way to clean up someone’s reputation, to cleanse them of their sins or to make them relevant again. Justin Bieber was roasted– it’s like he was getting some bad press and they had him do it so people fall in love with him again. You know, Donald Trump. I didn’t think this at the time, but someone brought this to my attention– that Trump roast was like the first step in his campaign.”
(Jorge Meza/OFTV)
Kreischer is very different from Trump, of course. The Netflix darling (known for doing his sets shirtless) has a child-like charm, and though his shtick often plays on his supposed lack of smarts, the way the guy crafts story-telling-style stand-up is pure genius. We’re late to Kreischer’s world of comedy, but thanks to Cummings, we’ve quickly become a fan of his output, from his specials to his reality shows to his many, many podcasts.
The launch party for his roast (held at the Sunset Room in the Edition Hotel on Sunset Blvd.) was even more thematically low-brow, with stripper poles, inflatables, kegs and snacks such as Ho-Ho’s and Ding Dongs. We got to hang with the man of the hour, and even meet his wife and two daughters, amidst the circus-like atmosphere.
“Whitney’s got a very contagious energy,” Kreischer tells us. “You want to be around her. And because I’m married with two kids, I’ve never been a pussy hound and I’ve always been good friends with the cool chicks in comedy– like Nikki [Glazer], Whitney, Amy [Schumer]. My wife and my daughters have become really close with Whitney too– she’s like an aunt to the girls.”
Kreischer then relays a story he’s told on various podcasts including his own (and our current favorite listen– Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Fly On The Wall): A friend dosed him with Molly (MDMA) without his knowledge or consent, just before he was to catch a flight for a show. He freaked out and at the urging of his wife, Cummings was the person he called to help him deal with it and calm down.
As for the OnlyFans Roast, he jokes that he might be sharing his own nudes soon, but he then gets serious. “Whitney is very inspirational. If you look at her resume, anything she decides to do, you gotta be in,” he says. Though he doesn’t remember all of the filming experience (he was drinking a lot), he had a good time with his pal. “Whitney is a light house in the fog and she’s a great ally,” he adds.
(More of our interview with Kreischer coming here soon to coincide with the release of his new film, The Machine).
Cummings and the Kreischer family (Jorge Meza/OFTV)
Following the screening, step and repeat posing and interviews, Whit chartered a party bus to the Hollywood strip club Crazy Girls for some more make-it-rain revelry. This gal, whose originally from D.C., knows how to have fun, something that was clear during our conversation prior to the event as well. She’s one of the most open and honest interviews we’ve ever had, in fact. We felt like we were on the phone with an old friend, catching up on life and fast-gabbing about everything. She spews lots of nuggets of wisdom non-stop, especially about herself and her peers. It’s no wonder she’s beloved in the comedy world and beyond.
Discussing the psychological challenges of being a comedian, and mourning the losses of Bob Saget, Louie Anderson and Gilbert Gottfried, we get into the Chris Rock-Will Smith incident, something that made every comic’s blood run cold for obvious reasons. “That’s incredibly important to mention, because it was another part of the reason I fought so hard to include other comics in what I’m doing, putting them in a situation where they feel protected and safe,” she explains. “Look, no one is making major life decisions based on what a comedian said. Chris Rock, one of our greatest, was physically assaulted on stage and no one stood up! Then Will went up there and got a standing ovation. Then, Chappelle gets attacked at the Hollywood Bowl. I know at least three female comedians, non-famous comedians, that had something like that happen to them on the road. It’s a tense time and I think I just wanted to sort of go back to the basics and the classics of, like, really smart, really brilliant, self effacing jokes that show we don’t have to all take ourselves so seriously.”
After Kreischer (who Cummings calls “a super warm, fuzzy person”), the next OnlyFans show will offer Whitney herself in the roastee chair, with Bob the Drag Queen, Hannah Stocking, Jim Norton, Donnell Rawlings, Annie Lederman, Dan Levy, Robin Tran, Luis J. Gomez and other “surprise guests” lovingly tearing her apart. Beyond roasting pals, she also been showing off her acting chops lately– she had the best scenes in the Foo Fighters horror comedy Studio 666, which she describes as a surreal fever dream.
“Dave Grohl and all the Foo Fighters are the best people on the planet,” she adds. “When you get a call, like, ‘Hey, do you want to get sawed in half in a Foo Fighters horror movie? You’re just like this is too good to be true. You know, for me, like the alliance that’s always existed between comedians and sex workers, it’s the same with comedians and musicians. The Foo Fighters always made these hilarious music videos. I also did the Machine Gun Kelly movie. They were both super inspiring experiences that made me kind of want to cross genres more.”
(Jorge Meza)
She’s doing just that with the new Fox drama called The Accused (from the creators of 24 and Homeland) which is a rare non-comedic turn. She’s also touring with her latest show (info here) and says she’s thinking about doing her next stand up special on Only Fans too, which could make the site a new home for uncensored comedy. Though the soiree was risque and OnlyFans-friendly (OF merch giveaways were plentiful– our fave promo item was an “OnlyFans” personal electric fan), the TV show itself is surprisingly tame in terms of sex. Clearly OF is looking to expand content beyond cam-girl voyeurism, and comedy is a promising and seemingly untapped place to go, especially with cancel culture threatening to suppress it every day in the mainstream. As for joining her fellow OF creators and showing some skin, she’s not opposed to it, but it might be a while.
“I think I’ve spent so much time as a female comedian having shame about my femininity, but as I get older, I feel that less,” Cummings shares as our chat comes to a close. “But I still struggle with it a little bit. I had a nude photo leak –I talked about it on my last special and I made jokes about it. So if I do it, I just want to make sure I’m doing it for the right reasons and not out of desperation. It has to have a point to it. But I’m not just in support sex workers, I’m in awe of them.”
Watch Whitney Cummings Presents The Roast of Bert Kreischer here.
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