Tig Notaro has been through some serious trials in her life — including nearly dying from a C-diff infection in 2012, losing her mother to a fall, and being diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer, all within a year.
But the actress, writer and stand-up comedian said she still can’t find the funny in it all, even after undergoing a double mastectomy at the time.
“After I had a double mastectomy, the comedian in me kept hearing a voice in my head: ‘You should do a topless show, you should do a topless show.’ And I said: ‘I can’t perform topless!’ ” Notaro said during a conversation with Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider at End Well 2023: It’s about time for Los Angeles.
End Well’s annual symposium featured more than 25 voices — including Notaro, Dr. Ungerleider, and host and actress Yvette Nicole Brown — as they “championed pioneering minds and offered them a platform to take their ideas to the next level with fresh conversations or unexpected conversations,” it is stated in the press release for the event.
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Notaro added that the idea “kept coming up to the point where I was distracted every time I performed. I’d say, ‘I should take this shirt off.’ ”
Morning show star, 52, said she was worried it would seem like she was just “trying to pass something off – so to speak – as much more than the fact” that she had the surgery. But then she thought, “No, this is still relevant.”
She then revealed that she actually did a topless show. But she didn’t say anything to the audience about her scars — she just took off her shirt and continued with her point. “In the middle of the show, I took off my shirt and didn’t admit it,” she said.
Tig Notaro at End Well 2023.
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“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s what’s funny about it, talking about plane travel, which is the least respected comedy subject in conversations with comedians. And I thought, ‘That’s going to be great. I’m going to do hacky material without shirts and I’m exposing my mastectomy scars and I’m not going to admit it. And that way I might make a statement, but I hope it’s funny,’ Notaro continued.
She also said that when she left the stage, she was greeted by comedian Bo Burnham, who said he totally respected the move. “This was inspiring as a person, this is your body and you’re out there with your shirt off doing comedy,” she recalled him saying.
She added: “I didn’t even think that a man would [be inspired.]”
Notaro admitted at the time that she “wasn’t comfortable for a while after my surgery.” But then she started thinking about it differently. “That’s when I realized that my scars just show that my body has healed,” she concluded.
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Source: HIS Education