Heather McMahan is convinced you can learn a lot about society at any Chili\u2019s airport location.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s peak people watching and there happens to also be mozzarella sticks, lava cake, margaritas and the salsa trio with chips. For McMahan, it\u2019s the perks of touring around the country and her love of travel. More than that, it feeds McMahan\u2019s love for observing everyday humans who \u201care funny and ridiculous and unhinged and unfiltered and a mess and wrong and right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you\u2019re on the road, you\u2019re writing material, you\u2019re performing all the time, you\u2019re honing your craft, but you also have to, like, go sit at a Chili\u2019s sometimes and just have a mozzarella stick and a margarita and be like, what is life?,\u201d McMahan said. \u201cBecause you can get wrapped up in your own story and your own s\u2014 all the time, you have to go out, and that\u2019s why I travel so much \u2026 I like to just go live life [because] you\u2019re you\u2019re never going to have new material if you\u2019re not out there making mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMahan\u2019s Bamboozled tour, coming to the Orpheum Theatre on Nov. 1, is her third national tour and she\u2019s taking on new material that she\u2019s adding, building and moving every single show, and sometimes changing from city to city. The stand-up comic and actor had two comedy specials in recent years, including, \u201cSon I Never Had\u201d on Netflix, where she talked about her journey with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and \u201cBreadwinner\u201d on Hulu.<\/p>\n
The Times caught up with McMahan to talk about her tour, the intersection of comedy and politics, how she releases her emotions on stage and how she thinks about authenticity.<\/p>\n
What are you most excited about going into this upcoming set of shows that you have?<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019m having so much fun on this tour. It is my favorite set of material. The Bamboozle tour has just been lights out, out of control fun, and obviously playing some of my favorite cities. I\u2019m playing Dallas, I\u2019m going back to Lexington, Kentucky, where I shot my first special for Netflix. And now I\u2019m coming back to the Orpheum in L.A., which is one of my favorite venues of all time. I\u2019ve just been having a lot of fun. My first comedy special was about the loss of my father and I twisted it in the comedic way. And then the last special was just about the ins and outs of my first year of marriage and this big honeymoon that I had, this big over the top wedding. And this is truly just a hodgepodge of the most vulnerable s\u2014 in a super-funny way.<\/p>\n
People don\u2019t always want to talk about politics, and you decided to jump in the fray a bit. What\u2019s giving you the confidence to go up there and actually try to make a joke about the space that we are in?<\/b><\/p>\n
I am not talking about the actual politicians themselves. I am talking about the social circles that we find ourselves in and navigating that, and all of us navigating families and navigating getting crazy phone calls in the middle of the night from your old sorority sisters and that kind of stuff. I really can only talk about it from my point of view and my perspective and also the female perspective, and as a Southern woman I\u2019m very outspoken, and I love to make people laugh. There\u2019s so much humor, because I know that all of the things that are said at my country club are also said in other people\u2019s circles. And it\u2019s like I\u2019m just saying all the things that you might say in your mah-jongg group, but I\u2019m saying it out loud.<\/p>\n
McMahan\u2019s material transforms personal struggles \u2014 her father\u2019s death, her IVF journey and marriage challenges \u2014 into comedy that helps audiences feel less alone in their pain.<\/p>\n
(Mike Quinlan Full Stack Photography)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
How do you think comedy can actually help people process and make sense of politics and policy?<\/b><\/p>\n
My whole job is to be observational and then to take the things that make us uncomfortable, or the conversations that may make us feel uneasy, and to talk about it, right? You got to rip the Band-Aid off and have these conversations. I may not be saying the right things all the time, but I\u2019m at least going to be tapping into that little voice in your subconscious that\u2019s like, \u201cI kind of feel that way too.\u201d And then peeling back the layers of the world that we\u2019re in, especially America, it is so insane, like it feels like we\u2019re in an episode of \u201cVeep.\u201d Some genius comedy writer wrote it but then there\u2019s also the scary elements of what is actually going on. And some days I have to go outside, outside of a theater and touch grass and be like, what is actually happening? But my whole job is to say the things that we have all been feeling, or maybe we\u2019re all whispering in our friendship groups, and to break it down on stage for people to digest it and to laugh about it. That\u2019s the human condition. That\u2019s us all getting together and wanting to laugh about the things that are absurd, obscene, uncomfortable, because we\u2019re all going through it together.<\/p>\n
How would you describe Southern humor versus, say, Hollywood humor or New Yorker humor or Midwesterner humor?<\/b><\/p>\n
Southern humor is a little, you know, we always say we don\u2019t gossip in the South, we have prayer requests. We have a really interesting way of making you think about things and you don\u2019t realize that we\u2019ve just said the thing right to your face, but in a real Southern sweet tone. I don\u2019t want to say that we all have such different humor, but I know Southern women can get away with saying a lot of s\u2014 to your face that you didn\u2019t even realize that they just said, like New York humor is they may be a lot more brash and say it right to you. Southern humor sometimes you got to sit back and go, did she just insult me? And you\u2019re like, yeah, yeah, she did.<\/p>\n
How is your grief informing your comedy right now?<\/b><\/p>\n
Grief is never ending. It\u2019s always changing. And just when you thought you\u2019ve gotten through one stage, then you\u2019ve looped back around, and you\u2019re back to denial, right? I try and call my dead dad every tax season to be like, \u201cWell, he\u2019ll know if this is a write off.\u201d And then I\u2019m like, oh s\u2014, he\u2019s been buried for 10 years. It informs my comedy, because life is life. Truly, there are days where you\u2019re just trying to keep your head above water, you\u2019re just trying to figure it out, and grief to me hits me in the wildest, weirdest places. I could be at a Costco and I got a rotisserie chicken, and for some reason, the fact that they haven\u2019t changed the price of the hot dog at the Costco concessions. You know, I\u2019m like \u201cMy dad and I used to come to Costco and get a flatbed full of like computer equipment for his office\u201d and now here I am eating a rotisserie chicken and $1.50 hot dog, and a Diet Coke and I\u2019m losing my s\u2014. It hits you at the most random times.<\/p>\n
When it comes to grief, your marriage and how you\u2019re thinking about your own life, what have you had to learn to release to get to this point?<\/b><\/p>\n
As a comic, I feel that we have the healthiest way of coping with s\u2014 because we immediately, once we feel it, I\u2019m like, I can get up that night and work through that in a comedic way, work through those feelings. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any feelings that I haven\u2019t released. There\u2019s probably some feelings and thoughts that I should have kept close to the chest, but for me, truly how I\u2019ve healed in anything is getting up and making a joke about it, getting up and talking about it. If I can connect with an audience member who\u2019s also going through the same thing, or has gone through that, like my meet-and-greets after the shows where, you know, men and women come up to me, they\u2019re like, \u201cHey, I lost my parent,\u201d or \u201cI went through this,\u201d or, \u201cMy husband does the same s\u2014,\u201d that\u2019s why we do this. It\u2019s that human connection. So being able to say what I want on stage, release that feeling, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m holding back anything.<\/p>\n
Your Hulu special came out last year. Have your ideas on what it means to be a breadwinner changed at all?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, it hasn\u2019t changed. I have girlfriends who may not be making as much money as their spouses, or vice versa, and everybody is out there hustling and grinding it out and burning the candle at both ends. I have had to find moments this year specifically where I actually started to say no to a few things. And there\u2019s power in saying no. There\u2019s power in slowing down a little bit. There\u2019s power in taking care of yourself. I felt like at the beginning of my career, I had to strike so hard, while the iron was hot that literally I have crippling sciatica down both legs, because I\u2019m hopping on so many airplanes. I\u2019m blessed that I\u2019m a million miler and 360 member of Delta but there are moments where I\u2019m like, I could actually take this weekend off and just take care of myself and take an Epsom salt bath. So I do think there are moments where I\u2019m just like, it\u2019s OK to take care of yourself and it\u2019s OK to say no to things. We don\u2019t always have to be on top. It\u2019s OK to take one for the team and just chill the f\u2014 out.<\/p>\n
![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/46cb3cb\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4002x6000+0+0\/resize\/320x480!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd2%2F59%2F90fa5aa74eab9b181864a7dc031a%2Fheather-mcmahan-sneak-peak-19.jpg)
<\/picture>\nMcMahan deliberately overshares on stage, believing comedians heal by bleeding truth and processing life\u2019s messiest moments with unfiltered authenticity.<\/p>\n
(Mike Quinlan \/ Full Stack Photography)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
How do you filter yourself when it comes to knowing what to share and knowing what not to share?<\/b><\/p>\n
I\u2019ll tell you this, my therapist definitely has told me to pull back the reins. I will always share my story and what I am going through. I won\u2019t share stuff about people that I love, or what else is going on in other people\u2019s lives, I\u2019m very protective of that. But my story will always be up for grabs. Of course there are things that I keep close to the chest but I always share after I\u2019ve gone through it. When I was doing IVF multiple times and all those failures, I made a whole special about it, and I also then talked about it online and talked about it on my podcast. I overshare, period. I\u2019m a comic. If you ask an actor, they don\u2019t tell you anything. And then they go to a press tour, and then they say three things about the character and the project they\u2019re working on and then maybe you get some beauty routine tips. Comics are like, I will literally bleed out on stage and tell you my deepest, darkest fears.<\/p>\n
How do you define authenticity for yourself? <\/b><\/p>\n
I have been myself since Day 1. I never had to do any sort of formal training of how to peel back the layers and be me. I was myself out the gate, and, yeah, I did a lot of characters online, that\u2019s how I started. I would put on many wigs and play many different people. But from the jump, it has always been about me. And the joke has always been about me, even like I said, talking about politics. The joke is, how have I f\u2014 this up? How have I misinterpreted something? It\u2019s always back on me. I think I am my most vulnerable self when I am performing, when I am being creative and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever held back. I think I hold the most back when I\u2019m interviewing people on the red carpet, because I know I have to be buttoned up, and it\u2019s about them. There are moments where I\u2019m interviewing somebody, and then off camera, we\u2019re having a ridiculous conversation that I wish could be on camera. And I\u2019m like, I really hope that wasn\u2019t online, you know? But I\u2019ve always been me, period.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heather McMahan is convinced you can learn a lot about society at any Chili\u2019s airport location. It\u2019s peak people watching and there happens to also be mozzarella sticks, lava cake, margaritas and the salsa trio with chips. For McMahan, it\u2019s the perks of touring around the country and her love of travel. More than that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2124482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Heather-McMahan-knows-she-can-overshare-but-shes-using-comedy.com2Fdf2F352F442c01b74343b52c027a31a0-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124483,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124481\/revisions\/2124483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2124482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}