‘Full Frontal’ Host Samantha Bee Says She’s ‘Jinxed A Lot Of Things’
Last fall, Full Frontal host Samantha Bee voted in her first U.S. presidential election — and if you’re a Hillary Clinton supporter, you can maybe blame her for your candidate’s loss. In an interview with The Star, Bee admitted her vocal support for the Democratic candidate led her to be disappointed the day after election day. If you’re superstitious, you might think her ardent support is what made things go sour for Clinton.
“I’ve jinxed a lot of things, I’m not gonna lie. That’s the one thing that I do take responsibility for. I’m a cooler. If you’re winning at something I’ll come in and make sure you go off the rails.”
Anyone who has seen Bee’s show on TBS knows she isn’t shy about her opinions — but the Canadian-born former Daily Show correspondent says comedy, not politics, is the central focus of the show.
“You can’t really make a comedy show if you make it with the intention of making a difference. You kind of tip over the line into activism, which isn’t funny. We really just do the show for ourselves and hope that other people receive it. It really is for us first. It’s selfish, but it’s true.”
Bee’s assessment of her own program is striking, particularly in light of Chris Rock’s comments last fall that not all comedy is intended for a wide audience. As Variety reported, he singled out Full Frontal as one show that does not have him in mind.
“[T]his is not for me particularly. This is for a certain group of women, and I gotta kind of defer. I think people should be funny to the people who look like them first. If you can’t be funny to the people who look like you, something’s wrong.”
As Rolling Stone reported in a profile last year, Bee was working at an ad agency in Canada when her agent called with an audition for The Daily Show back in 2003. Few people knew of the show at the time, but she and her husband, Jason Jones, were regular viewers. When Bee landed the job on Jon Stewart’s signature program, Jones returned home to Canada. He would eventually also join the show as well, two years later, in 2005.
Variety reported this week that the couple just bought a condo in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Jones and Bee have three children.
Jones and Bee co-wrote and starred in the TBS comedy The Detour, which they sold to the network and shot just a few months before Stewart announced his Daily Show retirement in February, 2015. The bosses at TBS then offered Bee her own show, which became Full Frontal.
When Full Frontal debuted last year, the New York Times called Bee’s brand of humor “fiery feminism,” noting that, at then-46-years-old, she was a generation between millennials and Hillary Clinton’s 1960s-era activists.
As much as she is a politically-minded comedian, Bee says she is not a fan of having Trump in the White House. She’d prefer a nerdier target than the former businessman.
“It’s hard. It’s actually really hard talking about him. I would vastly prefer trying to find comedy in a nerdy policy wonk. Pokemon Go to the polls would be such a joy right now.”
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee airs weekly on TBS. The show also airs in Canada on Comedy Central.
[Featured Image by John Sciulli/Getty Images]
