It’s been 3 weeks since the iconic Netflix special — The Roast of Tom Brady — aired worldwide, but the jokes still land. The roast of the GOAT was an instant hit, and one of the biggest winners of the special was comedian Nikki Glaser, who won everyone’s hearts [and Tom’s curses] by cracking some of the best [read brutal] jokes of the night. However, after embarrassing Tom Brady throughout the night, karma hit Nikki, as her mother did the same to her.
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Appearing on the latest episode of the ‘We Might Be Drunk’ podcast, the comic shared a hilarious anecdote. Following the live taping, Nikki and her mother were on their way to the backstage area. Brady, meanwhile, seemed to be on a tight schedule and looked to be on his way out, as he didn’t allow anyone to meet him.
Unfortunately for Nikki, she and her mother bumped into Tom en route backstage. This is when Nikki’s mother, Julia, decided to embarrass both Nikki and Tom by asking the latter how good her daughter’s jokes were.
“After the roast, my mom literally went up to Tom Brady. Like we were not supposed to be able to meet him but he was leaving as we were coming backstage, [and she says] I’m Nikki’s mom, ‘Wasn’t she great?’” recounted Nikki of the backstage encounter.
The whole line of questioning visibly amused Brady, as Nikki felt that Brady barely knew her and had probably half-forgotten her name by the end of the show. So this question left Brady feeling shell-shocked a bit. He, therefore, gave a generic pleasantry to Julia before running off.
“He’s like I don’t even know who Nikki is, like I just learned her name and I’m going to forget it by the time I get to the car. But he was a little Shell Shocked after that,” Nikki said.
This is interestingly not the first time that Nikki’s parents have embarrassed her in front of a celebrity/community. For instance, during an episode of the comedian’s show “Not Safe With Nikki Glaser” in 2019, Nikki subjected her musician father, EJ Glaser, and her mother, Julia, to a lie detector test. Among the many embarrassing and funny revelations included the parents’ admission of engaging in an “accidental” sex act, as reported by Nicki Swift.
Despite the embarrassment post-show, what one can’t take away from Nikki is the brilliance of her performance. Hence, Julia was completely justified in feeling proud of her daughter’s performance. And so should Nikki, thanks to the rigorous preparation that went behind her performance.
How Did Nikki Glaser Prepare for the Roast?
Weeks before the D-day, Nikki attended a host of open mic sets at Improv Clubs to test out her jokes. It’s based on this week-long testing that helped her have an idea of which jokes to perform and which to leave out. For instance, a few jokes on Drew Bledsoe didn’t get the desired reaction, so she decided to cut them and focus more on what the open mic audience loved, helping her curate her set.
However, the biggest anxiety inducer for her was something that she couldn’t prepare for — the prompters. Considering the live nature of the show, there were zero chances to improvise if some other comic cracked a similar joke. As the prompter has all the jokes fed in beforehand, if another comic cracked her joke before her, she could be in a lot of trouble.
“There [is] immense amount of anxiety that you have watching the prompter and just to see if your joke comes up because your joke’s already locked in,” Nikki said. “It’s a live show, there’s no commercial breaks and there’s no like ‘hey, someone did my joke, can we take it out of the prompter?’ You just have to like do your act.”
Unfortunately for Nikki, Kevin Hart had a joke on similar lines to her [The joke about Tom Brady’s phallus having a CTE]. However, Nikki’s joke still landed thanks to a comparatively long gap between the two jokes. Regardless, it was a stellar night for her, and the Netflix event has arguably changed her life.
