The once-niche Australian comic has emerged as the biggest stand-up story of 2018.
Now shes a global sensation.
Shes wrestled with severe depression throughout her adult life.
Credit: Ben King/Netflix
Comedy, at least initially, was one way for her to cope with that pain.
But as she explains inNanette, she learned not so long ago that winking self-deprecation wasnt quite healing.
Its not humility, she tells her audience.
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It exists in the world without me having to perform it, she marvels.
It continues to do what it needs to do.
But I actually do need to have a rest.
I do need to stop.
Its a heavy act, one shes revisited for hundreds of fresh crowds, live.
I was worried when I first started doing it that I was doing damage to myself, she says.
But it got easier slowly though for me to leave the pain of performing the show on stage.
I knew where she was sitting and I could see her as I was doing it, Gadsby recalls.
Indeed, Gadsby notes that the energy in the Opera House was pretty extraordinary because of this.
Theres something that happened in the room when I put [that] out there, Gadsby reveals.
The comic agrees, but adds, I think thats missing the point.
And I dont feel like I need to tell that story again.
Or have things changed?
She laughs slightly, but knowingly.
I certainly feel for the next little while that Im not going to be performing, she reveals.
Coyly, she then adds: I may or may not have to live up to my declaration.
Nanetteis streaming on Netflix.
