Insult comic Lisa Lampanelli will rip you a new one

Lisa Lampanelli may regularly offend blacks, Latinos, Asians, and just about every other ethnic group in America, but deep down, we're pretty sure the bitter, racist bitch has a heart of gold. The self-styled insult comic has been honing her craft since 1990, when, after stints at Rolling Stone and Spy, she left a journalism career behind to do stand-up full-time. Since 2002, she has become the go-to girl for roast organizers, bludgeoning comics and celebrities alike for the Friars Club, Comedy Central, and Howard Stern's satellite radio show. "I tried to TiVo T.J. Hooker," she once told William Shatner, "but my TiVo suggested that I punch myself in the cunt." Lampanelli's barbs on the Stern show can be especially sharp: She praised Artie Lange for his ability to entertain millions "while they take a shit," and informed another Stern writer that "Cory Lidle's plane was more on target" than his jokes.

The single white 45-year-old is currently on tour to support the DVD and CD releases of her latest Comedy Central special, Dirty Girl. We caught up with her during a recent snowstorm to discuss the perils of dating, touring, and using the N-word.

We had a legitimate African black guy, which is always fun in the audience because it gets a few jokes about how they have clicks in their name. And you know, flies on their face and stuffRADAR: Sorry you're stuck at home in the snow. You had a date planned for tonight?
LISA LAMPANELLI: You know, you catch me at a bad time, because it's like, the worst. I try to just muzzle through and be so tough, but everything is always getting in my way. So I'm sitting here going, "God, the one time I have something scheduled, and I can't even get out of my fucking house." I guess it's just ridiculous, because I'm not supposed to be like that, I'm not supposed to be that fucking chick. But that's probably why people come to see my show, because I've got all those sides to my personality, and that's what they see.

The last time we talked, you were exhausted in the middle of your tour. Where have you been since?
I went to Iowa and Nebraska, and there were lots of frickin' white people there, man. It's like we had the occasional black guy. We had a legitimate African black guy, which is always fun in the audience because it gets a few jokes about how they have clicks in their name. And you know, flies on their face and stuff. So all the classy humor came out in Iowa.

When you go out on stage, do you actually look for the black guy in the audience?
I don't look, but Wendel, my fag opening act, he'll do his 20 minutes or whatever, and he'll look around and go, "Okay, there's a black guy over there, a Hispanic over there." We light it so we can see the first 10 rows or so. And if he sometimes sees nothing, I'm like, screw it. I'll just say, "Any blacks?" and figure it out. If there's not, oh well. I guess we could say the N-word more.

So if you don't see anybody, say, Hispanic or black, does your act change?
No. I'm doing far less insults now and far more material. But it's all hinged on race anyway. I don't need anyone there that desperately. I used to have to go, "Hey, white guy, you have to be black tonight. All you have to do is grow a longer dick and quit your job." So I'd have a way to work it. But now I don't really even have to do that too much.

On Dirty Girl, you tell a story about needing the services of a fluffer before you appeared on The Howard Stern Show. I didn't think there was such a thing as fluffers for females.
Yeah, I think so. They get you in a good mood and make you perform better. I remember once making out with a really hot guy before a show in Long Island years ago. Boy, that was the funniest set. And I think it had something to do with making out with the dude. I also remember having an enormous fight with a guy, like one of those screaming fights, right before I ran onstage, and I was funnier than anything that night. So as long as there's a guy to either make out with me or fight with me, I think I'm okay.

So when you do interviews with local radio stations, do the DJs try to mix it up with you like Stern does?

[There was] that fucking retard in Jackson, Mississippi, who was trying to talk shit to me. They think, "Oh, she's an insult comic, maybe I can try it, too." And it's like, "No, you can't. There's a reason you're earning 12 grand a year at a radio station, dumbass. You're not interesting. You're not funny. So don't try to go up against me." I'm just trying to sell albums and tickets, what's the problem?

You were a journalist before you started doing comedy full-time. Where were you working when you decided to make the change?
I was working in Stamford, Connecticut, at some editing place called Learning International. It was a place that did training manuals for something. They said they were going to have a company-wide layoff. I really wanted to get laid off because I knew I could live on unemployment for like, six months, and I knew I could make it work because I had a cheap apartment. So luckily when the layoff came, they called me in there all somber: "Yeah, we really have to let you go." And I'm like, "Cool!"

I used to have to go, "Hey, white guy, you have to be black tonight. All you have to do is grow a longer dick and quit your job" Did the insult stuff develop over time in terms of what you could say and what you couldn't say?
Well, I started getting an idea that I wanted to do it because it was fun. Every time I made fun of somebody, they didn't really get pissed. And I was having more fun with it than just standing up and saying some dumb regular material. So I remember taking chances and putting a little bit of ethnic stuff out there and being more controversial. You don't become a doctor and immediately the next day do heart surgery. You work up to it. Or a lawyer doesn't try a murder case immediately. You just start slow and dabble in it, then eventually work up to where you can say whatever you want.

How did you know where the line was, though?
Well, there isn't any.

There isn't any?
I don't think so. I mean, there's a line for yourself where you go, "Ah, I don't think I could pull that off yet." If it's not funny, why am I going to bother with it? But a joke in that vein has to be really funny for the audience to buy into it. I think I said something about Patton Oswalt, that he's caused more moments of silence than September 11th. I love that joke, but it still gets like, "Ohhh." And I go, "Shut the fuck up, I'm a New Yorker, I was there." So I can get away with it.

Early on, did you get people coming up to you in clubs who were troubled by your act?
A couple people would say, "Why don't you make fun of white people more?" And I'd be like, every time I pick on an old guy, a gay guy, Italian, Jew, those are white people. There's no general jokes about white people. Rednecks, kind of a "git 'er done" type, I make fun of. So there are specific white groups I make fun of, but that's a big criticism: "Make fun of white people more." Leave that to the black comics. They've been doing it great for years and nobody says to them, "Why do you make fun of white people?" It's like, what?

What is the difference between what you're doing and what happened with Michael Richards? Because when you look at what Michael Richards did, it seemed like it was coming from a very different, very dark spot.
I don't do it [the racial jokes] with anything out of anger. And every time I do something out of anger, it ends up not going in a racial vein anyway. Like if somebody cuts me off in traffic, the first thing I yell is, "You fucking asshole" or "You cocksucker" or whatever. It's never "fucking nigger" or "fucking Jew." I think the audience knows it comes from a good place. Everything is about intention.

If somebody cuts me off in traffic, the first thing I yell is, "You fucking asshole" or "You cocksucker" or whatever. It's never "fucking
nigger" or "fucking Jew"
There are times you have to deal with hecklers. What's the difference between the mock-angry Lisa on stage and the one who's really pissed off at somebody?
I think the anger will come when they've been warned once. Like, there was this group of girls at Caroline's from one of those fucking bachelorette parties that think the world revolves around them because she snared a fucking husband and they're so special and this and that. I can tell this whole group of girls was getting the audience around them annoyed. So I said, "Ladies, come on, seriously, you have to be quiet 'cause there's like 500 people in here, man." And it was said nicely, not cunty; I said, "Please, one more word, and I'm really going to have to get rid of you, I'm sorry." I said it nice.

And one of them challenged me, because there's always some cunt who has to challenge me who thinks they're funnier. And the fucking angry Lisa came out. You challenge me, and it's on, bitch! I was like, "Get the fuck out of here, you fuck!" And I wish I had that on tape because it wasn't even funny. I don't make it funny. I go, "You're fucking cunts." I psychoanalyze them—"I know your little fucking MO. You live off your husbands, you don't appreciate anybody who has to work for a living, which I fucking do and all these other people do, and you have to be the center of attention because you didn't get any fucking attention in high school. So get the fuck out of here and go to a therapist, because this audience paid to see me, not you, you fucking self-righteous Jew cunts."

In 2002, you were the only female comic on the dais for the Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase—and it was your first roast. What's the fundamental difference between roasting and doing your stand-up act?
For me, the roast material is stuff you can't try. You can't go into an audience and say, "Hey, I'm going to pretend you're Chevy Chase, I'm going to pretend you're Paul Shaffer, I'm going to pretend you're Pam Anderson." I did that once just to practice for the Chevy Chase roast because I was so nervous. It's untried stuff that you just have read to your friends, your manager, your agents, and go, "God, I hope this is funny." By now, I know what's funny and what's not, but there's a chance that a lot of it won't land.

Get the fuck out of here and go to a therapist because this audience paid to see me, not you, you fucking self-
righteous Jew cuntsThe roasts you do for Howard Stern's show seem to be a lot rougher than the ones you do for the Friars Club or Comedy Central.
On Howard, you get this bunch of crazy, nasty, creepy guys. That's the only place they can get away with every venomous thing they ever wanted to say. So the Stern ones just have this heightened level of craziness and weirdness where you don't know who's going to do what. You always know somebody's going to piss somebody off for real.

You recently dated a big, strapping black guy. But you didn't always date black guys, right?
Yeah, I would always get the chubby white guy. And it was when I broke up with my last chubby white guy, I was like, I'm going to take a year off from dating and just concentrate on self-improvement and all that shit. I'm living in New York, and I'm like, "Man, there's some fucking hot guys out here who are not just white guys." So it ended up that I said, "Okay, let me just date one, let me just see what happens." And woooo, there was no problem with that. Even though the first black guy I dated was a freakin' uncircumcised black guy. I mean, that's a lot to concentrate on at once. Your first black, plus your first uncircumcised. That's a little rough. So I got through it, even though it looked like a big earthworm, it was really creepy. I think I got stoned. I don't even smoke pot, but at that time, I was like, I gotta, just to get through this. And it was for about three, four years that I was just dating the blacks.

Do you think mentioning him in your act helped you out with audiences?
Nah. I guess it really didn't matter too much. I think it helped me have material because I love talking about him and how funny it was that we were dating. But it's just one of those things where we got along. I was able, even when he was in the audience, to point him out and say, "Look at that big black guy, I'm banging that thing."

After the Michael Richards thing happened, comics like Paul Mooney started saying, "I'm not going to use the N-word anymore in my act." What did you think when you heard people say that?
Of course my first reaction was, "Pussies!" But then, I was like, "Let them do what they want, what's in their heart." It's not going to stop me from doing anything. I'm still going to do what I do and if [comedy club owners] don't like it, that's okay. You don't have to book me. But I think comics who sort of folded, I don't even get that. You're going to fold because the Laugh Factory won't pay you your $10 spot money for saying the N-word? Ooooh.

The first black guy I dated was a freakin' uncircumcised black guy. I mean, that's a lot to concentrate on at once. Your first black, plus your first uncircumcised. That's a little roughI think you're one of the few white comics who can actually say the N-word and get away with it.
Right. It's like leaving somebody out if I'm saying "spic" and "chink" and all that other stuff. I better be able to say it all or else it shows, I'm afraid. And fear is the only thing that you can't show in stand-up. If you fear another race, you're pretty racist. I'm not afraid of black people, I'm not afraid of Hispanics, I'm not afraid of anybody. So you know what, I guess I can say whatever I want.