‘I’m so excited and nervous’: Comedian and KU grad Nikki Glaser is returning to Kansas

It’s been 17 years since Nikki Glaser left the cozy confines of the University of Kansas campus to head straight into the cutthroat maw of the Los Angeles comedy scene.

The decision has worked out rather well for the 39-year-old performer, who’s found a huge audience that appreciates her fearless, brutally honest and self-deprecating brand of humor. Glaser appears Sunday, Oct. 29, at the Lied Center of Kansas in Lawrence while on a stop for what she is labeling The Good Girl Tour. This marks her first on-campus performance since graduating from KU in 2006 with a degree in English.

“I’m so excited and nervous,” Glaser says. “It’s kind of like a hometown show. I’ll know people there, so it’s a big deal.”

The Cincinnati-born, St. Louis-raised comedian seems to be everywhere there’s a camera or a crowd. Just post-pandemic, she has starred in the E! reality sitcom “Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?,” hosted and executive produced the HBO Max/CW dating series “FBoy Island” — Season three premiered Oct. 16 — headlined her first HBO comedy special “Good Clean Filth” and hosted the “MTV Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted.”

She also can be seen frequently on numerous game shows and multiple “Comedy Central Roast” specials and found each week on her popular “The Nikki Glaser Podcast.”

And yet somehow despite all this exposure, Glaser remains entirely approachable. Down-to-earth even.

She recently spoke to the Star about her college experience in Kansas, her penchant for oversharing and the best roast jokes she was forbidden to say.

Q: Will this be your first return to Lawrence since you went to college?

A: I played the Granada about eight years ago. But I also went back one time when I was visiting a friend in Kansas City during COVID. We decided to head over to Lawrence and just drive around town and yell out the door of her SUV. Except we didn’t realize we were so much older than we thought.

So we would drive past kids who were doing keg stands on their front lawns or waiting to get in at — what’s it called? — the Hawk. And we were screaming, “Mama’s home!” That was a whole evening for us, driving past kids saying, “Study hard. Stay in school. Make good decisions. And Mama’s home.” COVID was a weird time.

Q: Were you a “good girl” in college?

A: Yes, I was. I was so focused on becoming a comedian, and I was so obsessed with stand-up. I just kind of knew that a college education wasn’t going to change my life at all. I was just doing it to appease my parents because they were paying for my school, which is so amazing. I would have dropped out, but they were like, “Just get a degree.”

So I wasn’t really focused on school or the college lifestyle. I was constantly driving to Kansas City to do stand-up or staying at home to write stand-up. I was really focused by the time I got to KU on getting out and what I was going to do as soon as I graduated.

Q: You mentioned in our last interview that you waited tables at Aladdin Café. It’s still open, so will you drop by to pick up a shift when you’re in Lawrence?

A: I really would love to because it was one of my favorite jobs of all time. I shot a scene there for my reality show two years ago that didn’t end up making the cut … where I visited (owner) Mohammed and the whole Iskandrani family. I went back and got my table drinks and wrote down our orders. I still remember how to do everything there, and it’s still run the same way and still family owned. I will definitely be going there for both meals. Lunch and dinner. My mouth is watering just thinking about the salad dressing.

Q: Your bio mentions that you often “flex your oversharing muscle.” Can you give me an example of a time when you wish you hadn’t done that?

A: Yeah. Oh God, all the time. I remember a time on stage when I had just found out I had HPV that day — I got like a letter in the mail. I said it on stage that night, and I wish I hadn’t done that because it was just too soon. But the joy of being on stage or being a comedian is that you can take these things that you’re struggling with shame-wise and make a joke about it. Then the shame is lifted, and now you have control over the story.

I think why I love stand-up is that I’m consumed by shame and low self-esteem every day, and just grappling with the brain I was born with, and the body I was born with, and wishing I was something else. Then you make fun of it before someone else can, and it helps you cope. But I remember one time being on stage saying something really disgusting, and a girl in the front row said, “Eww.” And I lashed out at her because I felt judged. She was obviously judgmental of what I just said. And I go, “Oh really, you’ve never done that?” And she goes, “I mean I have, but I wouldn’t say it in front of a room of people.” That really hit me hard. Like what is compelling me to do this?

Q: You’re constantly on television. When is the last time you turned on a TV and randomly saw yourself?

A: It does happen a lot. I just recently turned on the TV and immediately saw me in an ad for “The $100,000 Pyramid.” I was also in The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle back in May, which was a huge deal because I play that every day. So stumbling across my own name was probably the biggest achievement in my life, and I say that with no sense of irony. That’s going down in history, whereas most of the stuff I do, people won’t remember.

Q: How did they phrase the clue?

A: It said, “Comedian/TV Host Nikki.” It was very obviously me, and I got so many messages. That’s how you find out who your smartest friends are. But yeah, I’m on TV a lot. I just read a quote from Joan Rivers in which she said, “I never turned down anything. You say ‘yes’ to everything because you never know.” And as much as I think that is a compulsion and not healthy, at some point I had to start saying no to things because I got so exhausted. I still have that voice in my head of her saying “yes” to everything because you never know how someone’s going to discover you.

There are so many ways that these different TV shows showcase different sides of my talent. Some people just know me from roasts. Some people know me from doing network TV game shows. Some people know me from “The Masked Singer.” There are all these different facets to my personality, and it’s nice to showcase them all because I’m more than “the dirty comic.” Now with oversaturation of media, you can’t just stick in your own lane. You have to do everything.

Q: Speaking of which, I never miss a roast when you’re involved. What’s the best line you’ve ever had that didn’t make it onto the air?

A: It was about Caitlyn Jenner. It got cut because she said if anyone made a joke about this topic, she would walk off the stage. So I pulled it. The joke was, “Caitlyn Jenner. What a beautiful woman … you killed with your car.” A good joke in terms of the way it’s written but a bad joke in terms of obviously referencing something tragic that happened, and something that was an accident that she doesn’t want to relive. (Jenner eventually paid $800,000 to settle a lawsuit after the 2015 fatal crash.) So I had no problem taking that out. But I also had one that said, “You’re one woman who can’t menstruate, but you still managed to have blood on your hands.”

Q: There’s much discussion now about Hasan Minhaj and the “emotional truth of comedy.” What are your guidelines when weighing truth versus a better punch line?

A: Exaggeration within stories and using hyperbole to get a joke across is to be expected. A lot of times I’ll make up a fake premise for the sake of a joke. But those jokes are not painting me as a hero. I’m not delivering them like it’s a TED Talk about something horrible that happened to me that I want everyone to be on the verge of tears about. The ways he wielded his lies were not for the sake of comedy. They were for the sake of people feeling emotional and feeling sorry for him. It was an act of fiction the way he would cry and be emotive over saying things that really pull at your heartstrings, but it was done under the guise of this happened to him. So I find it inappropriate and manipulative the way he did it. But I do agree with him that most jokes are like 30% exaggerated.

Q: Aside from performing, you’ve done a lot of writing and producing. Do you envision your career ultimately going more in that direction?

A: I hope not because performing is my favorite thing to do. It’s the easiest thing to do — and I don’t really want to work that hard. I show up and get the job done when it needs to be done. But probably it will go that way because we live in a shallow society that likes to see young, hot things, and that’s part of my appeal. I’m not like the hottest person in the world. But certainly my youth and … I’m not a horrible-looking ogre. That behooves me to be on TV. As you get older, you just see fewer old people on TV in general. I make a joke about it in my act that people say, “Oh, you don’t need to stay hot and young. You’re like Joan Rivers.” And I’m like, “Well, she died on an operating table.”

Jon Niccum is a filmmaker, freelance writer and author. His new book is titled “Power Up: Leadership, Character and Conflict Beyond the Superhero Multiverse.”

Nikki Glaser in Kansas

The comedian will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29, at the Lied Center, 1600 Stewart Drive in Lawrence. See lied.ku.edu or call 785-864-2787.