Jen Kirkman
Jen Kirkman
Jennifer Ann "Jen" Kirkman is an American stand-up comedian, screenwriter, and actress. She is known for her regular appearances as a round-table panelist on Chelsea Lately, as well as for her appearances on the Funny or Die sketch series Drunk History, and its 2013 continuation television series on Comedy Central. She has released two comedy albums, Self Helpand Hail to the Freaks. Her debut book, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids, was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth28 August 1974
CityNeedham, MA
CountryUnited States of America
There are a lot of things I might be good at, such as competitive figure skating, window washing from ten stories up, and being an open heart surgeon. I might also make an excellent Kamikaze pilot - except for the fact that I don't want to learn how to fly and have no interest in taking my own life on behalf of Japan.
Use your passport for domestic trips, so that way you don't risk losing your license.
I don't want to have kids and so I am not going to have kids. People who want kids are going to have kids. I'm doing what I want to do and people who want kids are doing what they want to do. What about this scenario makes me selfish?
I don't like to joke about dating.
My nana was always a widow as long as I was alive; my grandfather died before I was born. All the women on my street - there were four houses in a row with all old women who lived alone who were widowed. They all had kids, but they were all widowed. My mom didn't put me in preschool; I didn't know that was a thing. I just hung out with these women all day.
I really will never understand pushing back on comedians who are like, "I'm like a politician campaigning and shaking hands with these people. They're going to be okay."
I don't have any jokes about my divorce or my ex-husband, who is a lovely person. It really is about how I was an idiot trying to push this guy to get married when I wasn't even sure if I wanted to.
I had no idea that marriage was only supposed to be between two people who wanted to get between the sheets and make more people. What ever happened to marrying for love— or to get on your partner’s health insurance policy, or for presents? No one was going to buy two people in their thirties a four-slice toaster if we just continued to live in sin.
My brain does like the idea of hosting a late-night show. My brain does like the idea of maybe having a show about me. So, I often pitch ideas and work on scripts and do that just because I may not be right about how I feel, so why not just do this, and if it happens and I got my own show, well maybe I would really end up falling in love with it.
If, for some reason, everyone knew who I was without me having to have my own TV show, that's what I would do. That way, I could do less shows a year.
Actually, my friendships are changing because my friends have kids, so that's a new aspect to the material. Not just that I don't want to have kids, it's that I'm having a hard time relating to people I know.
It's much easier to make jokes about not having kids.
My joke is a picture of David Bowie on his balcony in the '70s in a suit in Paris, and unless that's you, I'm not interested. There are very few aesthetic types that I have, and people who look like that are not always necessarily good for me.
We have to get women's stories out there so a guy will read it, laugh, and think, 'I'm not laughing at a chick story but a story.'