At the very end of her new HBO stand-up special, Good Clean Filth, Nikki Glaser lays into The Daily Beast. Yes, the publication you’re reading now. While watching, I heard a phantom record scratch in my head—us?!
While she doesn’t name drop The Daily Beast explicitly—nor does she even remember the article was from our publication when I mention it in our Zoom interview—she clearly calls out this headline from an interview conducted last year: “Comedian Nikki Glaser Would Rather Be ‘Fuckable’ Than Funny.”
In Good Clean Filth, Glaser brings up the headline in a bit about a book that claims women must first be fuckable if they want to make any man fall in love with them: “Look fuckable, girls. It sucks. I know it sucks. Going skiing? Bring a sundress.”
Then, she moves onto the article, which accompanied her episode of our podcast, The Last Laugh. She was nervous upon its publication, she says, worrying that folks in the comedy world might call her out for such a statement. “Luckily, no one saw it, because a celebrity died that day,” Glaser jokes in the special.
Near the end of the bit, though, Glaser affirms that she did, in fact, say that she’d rather be fuckable than funny. But she jokes that she asked to nix that quote from the final cut of the article.
“It isn’t even what I said! Honestly, I was misquoted,” Glaser jokes. “I remember talking to the journalist, and what I did say was, ‘I value being fuckable more than being funny, but please don’t print that. I’m serious. People are going to be pissed. But between you and me? I do.’”
In the original interview, Glaser told The Daily Beast’s Matt Wilstein that she’s “not trying to find a life partner who goes, ‘Oh my god, she’s so funny.’ That’s not what I’m looking for in a relationship, is someone who tells me I’m funny all the time. Because I know I am.” Then, she added: “I just want someone who tells me I’m fuckable all the time.”
A year later, in a new interview with The Daily Beast, Glaser explained why the headline gave her anxiety, forcing her to keep quiet about the interview. No, she didn’t share it all over social media, though she tells me she has a “hard time keeping in anything” that others might never want to say out loud.
“My biggest fear,” Glaser was, “was that a female comic would write to me and say, ‘This is really sad. You are setting a horrible example for your niece and other women. You really need help. If you really think being hot is more important than being funny …’” Glaser cuts herself off. “And by the way, of course I do! I honestly do! In the long run, [looks fade], and funniness doesn’t.”
In large part, Glaser stands by her words in last year’s interview. Sure, she finds the headline a bit jarring—especially as the one associated with that quote—but she said what she said, and she’s not standing down. Going further on her quote, the comedian explains that being hot has become an industry standard in her field. If you’re not hot, there’s a potential that people just don’t pay attention to you.
“I would like people to perceive me as hot. I like to be perceived as other things, but hot is important! If you’re paying attention, hot is important, regardless of if I want hot to be important,” she says. “Until men aren’t ruling the world, and until men aren’t attracted to women, what I’ve found is that I have to be honest.
“For me, my truth isn’t that I love the body I’m in every day, and that I love the way I look, and that I accept it, and that I love my vagina, and I have body positivity pouring out of my ears,” she says. “That is my goal.”
Glaser insists that it’s her job to validate the feelings of all the budding comics and young women that watch her special. And in order to do that, she’s ditching body positivity and empowerment and admitting that, sometimes, she’s not so happy with her body.
“When J.Lo tells me that all she uses is her [own] skincare line? I’m sorry, that doesn’t make girls feel better, that all you do is not drink caffeine and use your skincare line. That’s lying to them, because there’s more going on,” Glaser says. “It’s OK to admit that you’re insecure.”
Right before we can get into any FBoy Island gossip, Glaser recommends a headline for this particular piece. “This article should say: ‘Nikki Glaser still values being fuckable more than being funny.’ It should be still,” she jokes. “We’ll just double down.”
For more, listen to Nikki Glaser on The Last Laugh podcast.
