“Lying doesn’t feel good anymore,” said the comedian Jerrod Carmichael as he sat on the steps of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, cars noisily zooming by on the West Side Highway, the Hudson River placid beyond. “I’m just trying to tell the truth now; the thoughts that I used to run from.” Creatively, that urge has served him well. Carmichael’s very funny, extremely riveting recent HBO special “Rothaniel,” in which the 35-year-old came out as gay and shared other painful and long-held family secrets was widely seen as a breakthrough for both him and the form, an expansion of what can be achieved formally and emotionally in filmed stand-up comedy. Away from the camera, the results have been more mixed. Carmichael’s religious Southern family has struggled to accept his sexuality. Indeed, he says, they don’t really even want to acknowledge it. But for Carmichael, who in person fairly shimmers for being so newly whole, to carry on as if nothing has changed would have been another lie. So he continued the discussion, engaging in a kind of solo family therapy in disarmingly open interviews on venues like “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and “The Howard Stern Show.” He did so knowing that his loved ones — in particular his conflicted mother — would most likely hear him. “My family would rather not talk about me being gay,” Carmichael said. “But if I accept the quiet, it makes me hate myself.”
For the last few months you’ve been confronting your family — through your work and in interviews — about the need to quit repressing things. I understand the value of mining that family tension for “Rothaniel,” but what are you getting out of carrying on that discussion publicly that you wouldn’t get by doing it privately? I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between public and private.
I can think of at least one difference. But it’s all in relation to shame! My dad, before the special, called me and said, “You going to do another special?” I said, “I’m thinking about it.” He said, “You going to talk about me in it?” “I don’t know. Why?” And he was like, “You put our business out there.” My response to that was: You’ve had a bunch of kids outside of marriage. These children are like billboards of your infidelity! You have shame attached to it and would rather not talk about it, which I get, but it’s already a public thing. Also, I sometimes feel more comfortable expressing things and being honest on camera. I came out to my mom on camera. Or tried to at least, because it was the only way I could feel brave enough. Because of the camera. That was my first time attempting to do it. I say “attempting” because I wasn’t clear, and I was afraid.
Yeah, I noticed back then that when you were asked about it, you played it down. I tried to dodge around it. Anything other than “I’m gay” was me dodging. I’m still scared about coming out, and I’m already out! But I felt more comfortable trying to say it on camera because the camera picks up on lies, so it forces you to be more honest. I’ve been trying to get my parents to hear me and see me my whole life — seeking some validation. It started as proxy arguments at home. Me telling them something like “drink more water” was me trying to see their capacity for change. Everything was actually “I’m gay.” But it’s still dodged. My sister just sent me a long text with every word but “gay” in it. That doesn’t feel true. I want the love, desperately, but not at the cost of not talking about it because that makes me hate myself.
Jerrod Carmichael in his recent stand-up special, ‘‘Rothaniel,’’ on HBO. HBO
What’s the thing you most need to hear from your family? If it’s a line drawn, then say that. It’s the timidity that bothers me. I’m looking to not be ignored. My family’s echoing that sentiment of, “All right, but why we gotta talk about it?” Sex is so important to all of our lives. My mom babysits my brother’s kids. She babysits his sex! I can’t bring anybody home, but you have babies? It’s absurd. I’m getting over wanting them to come to me. Why do I always have to be the one to find the treaty? It’s unfair. I’m being stubborn. It’s simultaneously devastating and makes me want to throw up and then sometimes I feel free.
You’re trying hard to tell the truth these days, but aside from what’s going on with your family, does committing to honesty present problems in your day-to-day life? It’s not easy to be fully honest with everyone. Oh, people get mad at you. I was searching my name on Twitter and people were mad because I said that [Dave] Chapelle should talk about himself. I don’t like that but I know that’s a part of telling the truth — the reaction isn’t consistent. I used to lie to keep a consistent reaction, which was all about Like me, like me, like me. It’s easier to lie or be quiet. I told the truth about who I am and now there’s a rift with my mom. I was lying because it was more pleasant.
For other people. For other people! And thus for me. I don’t like not talking to my mom. I don’t like people being mad at me on the internet. But it’s a byproduct of being honest. That’s the part of coming out, the relationship with my mom, that I don’t like. It was a truth I was afraid to say because of that one relationship. I knew saying it would force a line to be drawn in the sand, and I wanted to avoid that. Now I can’t unsee the line and neither can my mom. But it’s who I am. That said, there’s a lot of rewards. That’s why I keep talking about it. But the fear of saying the truth is that people won’t like me.
That’s interesting in light of the comedy you did before “Rothaniel.” It’s not as if you were going out of your way to be likable. I mean, in “Love at the Store,” you compared Hitler to Martin Luther King. I think I was telling every other truth, every other unlikable thing about me, because my views on all of that pale in comparison to saying I’m gay and my mom not accepting me. That was the hardest thing to say, and I couldn’t say that, so I was saying everything else. I was saying uncomfortable things: Michael Jackson bits and crazy bombs of things that I do believe. I wasn’t up there like, “Here’s something crazy for the sake of saying it.” But I wasn’t saying the most important thing. That’s what’s crazy about stand-up. It’s all under the illusion of truth. I was being honest but I was lying.
Right, so when you used to tell jokes in your old specials about “I wish I had a girlfriend” — I wished! I wished! I wished!
But what did you feel inside when you delivered material that conveyed one thing about who you were when the truth was another? I don’t know, man. I don’t know because I wouldn’t have called myself gay. I could not accept that. That’s why it’s important for me to say it now. The working title of “Rothaniel” was “I’m Gay.” There are certain phrases that have no substitute. Like “I’m gay” or telling someone “I’m sorry.” But people can live in cognitive dissonance. I did.
Now I’m thinking about how people so often talk about comedians as society’s philosophers and truth tellers. But comedy, and stand-up especially, is full of deception. Of course! It’s an act, and that’s why ultimately the art form contradicts the truth-teller and philosopher thing. “Rothaniel” is an exercise in ‘What if I actually told the truth? What if I actually delivered on the promise of the form?” Like Jay Z, the reason he was one of my favorite rappers is that he was honest. There was some exaggeration, but his high-wire act was telling uncomfortable truths. What Mozart was to Rothko is what Jay-Z is to me — I’m interpreting him. A lot of people who are inspired by him take the braggadociousness and the male ego but they forget he was saying, on songs like “You Must Love Me,” dark, uncomfortable truths. That’s why he stood above other rappers. In art, when truth is captured it rises. Even to the extent of like, “What if I did an honest interview?” To me it seems right, but it feels radical. Even now I’m hyping myself up to be on the record with you. [Carmichael points at my digital recorder.] To tell the truth on the record is crazy!
I have a thought about that, but first let me tell you my favorite line about comedians as philosophers. It’s when Norm Macdonald in his last special said, “A comedian is the modern-day philosopher. . . . Which makes me feel sad for the actual modern-day philosopher.” Yes! It’s like celebrities as activists. It’s what Malcolm X mocked: The idea of a trumpet player or a comedian speaking for Black people is insane. An actress speaking for women is absurd. There are activists who should do that. People who have dedicated their lives and can eschew corporate interest, which we can’t. We put on gowns and hold gold trophies. It’s not the same thing.
You’re in this moment where questions of personal truth feel intensely charged. But is practicing total truth emotionally sustainable in the long-term? Yes, because I get to make things and I like for my things to be truthful. Part of the reason I have to hype myself up for this setting with you is because if I’m going to be truthful, I would rather be doing it in the work. But it’s risk-reward. I’d like a reader to read this and watch more of my work. Actresses shouldn’t be activists: I said that. I mean that. I don’t know if Jessica Chastain’s going to watch “Rothaniel” now. That’s the risk. The value of promotion is the reward. The reward, I think, outweighs the risk. I’m not Beyoncé famous. I can’t just release a special and walk away. I’m jealous of Bo [Burnham]. I told him, “You’re in a position where you can do that.”
I bet you could too. Maybe now. Trust me, I will be quieter and quieter. Listen, this is nice, but the value is still whatever attention it directs to the work. I’d rather talk to you off the record. I’d rather have lunch with you without [Carmichael points at my recorder] this.
Yeah, you can’t get away from the transactional nature of what we’re doing. You can only hope people find something meaningful in the result. But it’s a super weird dynamic: I give you some form of public attention and in return I basically ask you to bleed for me. It’s wild! I’ll spare you my long rant about how the value of art currently is its ability to be dissected for everyone’s newsfeed. What we call the public is essentially Twitter, and they all have their own channel, and they need news. Something’s got to happen for 24 hours. So it’s more reaction videos than footage of the thing itself. It starts being such an echo chamber. That becomes the value to a lot of art. Like, artists are making songs to be cut up for TikTok. That’s working backward!
Carmichael on ‘‘Late Night With Seth Meyers’’ in April. Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images
The vulnerability that you’re now showing with your work and in conversation is obviously going to generate a lot of reciprocal sympathy from certain audiences. But sympathy is not necessarily the most useful thing for a comedian, is it? Yeah, love is dangerous to a performer. I had a thought the other day about separating art from celebrity and what I’ve been chasing. I’d like my art to be more famous than me. The example that came to my mind is Lizzo. Lizzo changed a song lyric and with all due respect to Lizzo, that’s not an artist move. That’s a celebrity move. She’s celebrated and wants to remain celebrated. When you start getting to a place where you’re changing song lyrics that you wrote — that’s not what an artist does. I have to stay in a place where I’m not afraid of that. I think that’s what audiences respect.
Was the red shirt you wore in “Rothaniel” supposed to be a signal to the audience? My colleague Wesley Morris wrote how it echoed the all-red suit that Eddie Murphy wore in “Delirious.” Which, I don’t know if you’ve watched that recently, but those first 10 minutes or so are pretty rough. Yeah, a friend of mine says he watches it every now and then just to be reminded. A lot could be said about Eddie, and he’s definitely a great figure in my life and I’ve seen all his stuff, but that wasn’t the intention behind the red. The red was, We liked those colors. I camera-tested a few ’fits. That’s one thing that’s easy to get a gay man to do. You want me to camera-test 30 outfits? I was going to do that anyway!
What do you make of “Delirious”? I’ve been thinking about that. Probably when I had seen “Delirious,” in my mind I wasn’t gay. I was so young when I saw it. I’d had experiences, but I don’t think my mind was there.
You’d had same-sex experiences already? Yeah, experiences with other boys. Stuff like that. But I didn’t consider myself — I say it as a joke but I was raised very straight. Expected to be straight. Expecting myself to be straight. Acting accordingly. Believed accordingly. I don’t remember contending with anything internally watching that as a child. But I have been thinking about D’Angelo’s “Untitled” video.
Tell me about that. I was a child but very attracted to him and wanted to react like the girls, but I said what the boys said. I loved how beautiful he was, but I had to pretend like No, look away! You can’t make up for lost time, but in a dream world I would have been comfortable enough to touch the screen, just gently place my hand on the V of his abs. Just gently. And my mother would be OK with that. I remember I wrote this monologue I was going to do, this Spalding Gray thing. There’s a line about if my mother could accept me being gay, I’d build us a big house and have one wing where I [expletive] twinks and another where she made me potato salad. That’s my dream little bubble. The combination of my mother and me being gay manifests itself in weird ways. I play gospel during sex sometimes, with a hookup. It feels like introducing my mother to the idea.
With your mom, does she think that you’re just confused about who you are or that you’re fundamentally sinful? It boils down to, Is being gay a choice? To her, I’m confused because I am choosing this. She has worded it to me, “You have decided to live the gay lifestyle.” I hate that sentence so much. It makes me crazy. To her, it is a decision I’m making to go against God. That lady loves her some God.
In “Rothaniel,” you say that you’ve been having to think about your conception of God and what God is. So what did you think God was and what do you think God is now? I try and hold onto Christianity, but I believe what we call God to be within myself. I believe I have access to that. I used to believe in the man in the sky that cast judgment and controlled. We talk about God’s paths but then we talk about decisions we make. My mother says I’m on God’s path which is validated when I have a TV show. Then I’m gay: How is that not God’s path? All these financial blessings that I provide for the family is a part of God’s thing. Then I’m gay and that’s going against God? There’s this book, the title I hate; the philosophy and the way to look at it, I love. It’s called “Discover the Power Within You,” by Eric Butterworth. Maya Angelou wrote the foreward. Oprah Winfrey endorsed it, so you know it’s real. It did help shift my view of the Bible: what Christ is saying is about internalizing the concept of God. He was like, “Hey, what if you’re God?” We mostly, for those of us who hold onto religion, hold onto the kind of child’s point of view that God will take care of you. I was forced outside of that. I was told I was going to hell. It left me no choice but to re-examine. I had to actually consider what I believe in and what I was doing. It makes me more conscious. So if you’re Christian, I recommend being gay too. [Laughs.] Read Eric Butterworth and be gay, and you may articulate the words of Christ better.
I’ve read that book, and it also talks about conflict with other people and how you need to see the divinity in them and not just try to convert them to your way of thinking. How does that concept sound in the context of you and your family? It’s a hard thing to accept. It’s easier to apply that concept with anyone else in my life, where the stakes feel lower. With family, it’s hard moving past the feeling that I’m owed something. I do strive for every part of that book. I reread it constantly. I do try to see the divinity in people. There’s this exercise, and I don’t know if I made it up or if I read it somewhere: When I’m out in public, I imagine myself at the bottom of a well, and every face I see, I imagine that they’re the first face peering over the side that can rescue me. You see everyone as an angel. Everyone is so beautiful. Even people that you hate.
How long does that last? Just for a second. But it’s a good reminder of what someone’s capable of. This is my first time having this thought: If I saw my mom, I’d be happy, but I’d probably still be like, “We gotta talk about it!”
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.
David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the columnist for Talk. Recently he interviewed Neal Stephenson about portraying a utopian future, Laurie Santos about happiness and Christopher Walken about acting.
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