#548 - Danae Hays on Being Roofied by a Fan + Her First Viral Video Getting 21M Views + The Time a Fan Got Arrested at Her Show + Bobby Says She is the Best Athlete He Knows + How She Landed Four ESPN Top 10 Plays

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I need to find six other people that are doing very well right now, and I need to absolutely annihilate them. Tonight when I get home, I'm going to see if I can't get a feud going with Luke Bryan.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Welcome to episode five forty eight with Danay Hayes. She's out on tour, the first time tour, which that goes all the way to the end of November. So you guys should go to a show if she comes around. If you hear this after that, I'm sure she's still not doing stuff. But I'm lucky enough to be friends with Denay a little bit before this started, or I don't think we could have gone to some of the place I wouldn't have felt comfortable going to some of the places that we went if we weren't already friends. You could see that, yeah, So especially like she was put into like gay conversion therapy. She had told me that story before we talk about it here. That's crazy man like to be that young.

00:00:55
Speaker 3: It's a wild yeah.

00:00:55
Speaker 2: So I don't want to say too much of it because you can hear it. And also I knew what kind of athletes she was from spending time with her, and I do give her the biggest athletic compliment I've ever given anyone in the history of this podcast. So really like Dnay. You probably see her from doing crazy stuff. We talk about our first ever viral video. I think you probably will know where in a different way after this. If not, if you don't know where at all, go check it out. All right here she is, Episode five eight. Comedian. We won't say influencer, not an influence, not an influencer, content creator, Danay Hayes Denay.

00:01:30
Speaker 3: Good to see you.

00:01:30
Speaker 4: Good to see you, Bobby.

00:01:32
Speaker 2: Well, my first question is what do you write in that line that says job like if you have to go for a medical or anything.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: Well, it's changed over the years. It was real estate agent.

00:01:46
Speaker 3: I saw that picture. I do want to come back to that. That's a really cool picture.

00:01:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, well thank you.

00:01:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you have to write now?

00:01:51
Speaker 1: Though, I guess comedian, comedian and content creator. It was content creator for a long time, which most people are like, what does that mean? And I'm like influencer, which feels very cheesy.

00:02:02
Speaker 3: By the way, soels like you're selling tell me t Yeah.

00:02:04
Speaker 1: I hate no, literally, I hate using the word influencer. But now I just I just get to say comedian, which also comes with the weird you know, the weird stuff right after, which is like, tell me something funny, so I.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: Which is the least a fun place to have to be to tell somebody something funny on command? Yeah, because unless you have an joke, nothing you say is going to actually be funny in that particular.

00:02:28
Speaker 3: No instance, I.

00:02:29
Speaker 1: Got rufied after a show in hattie's Burg, Mississippi, and spent eight thousand dollars in a er in Hattiesburg. And the doctor while I'm physically I feel like I'm dying on the on the bed. He walks in and he goes, I hear you're a comedian, and I'm like m He says, tell me something funny, and I was like unbelievable. Like Hattiesburg's also the last place you want to be on your deathbed at I thought.

00:02:52
Speaker 2: You were telling me a joke at first, because that's a good setup. I got rufied once and hatti's Burg, Mississippi.

00:02:57
Speaker 3: That was real.

00:02:58
Speaker 4: No, that was legit.

00:02:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the Michael Chandler was fighting and I went to a bar to watch his fight right after my show, and I took one drink from a fan who came to my show, and then.

00:03:09
Speaker 4: I was violent.

00:03:10
Speaker 1: Like I used this word to explain because it's the only thing that makes sense. It was violent. I think I threw up seventy times in forty eight hours.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: When did you know something was up? Uh?

00:03:22
Speaker 1: When I started getting up about thirty minutes after consuming one drink and I was shadow boxing the bartender, Like no joke. I literally started shadow boxing the bartender and my crew that was with me was like, something is going on with her? Like this is not She had one drink and then immediately I said, guys, I don't feel right. I gotta go home. By the way, I love that we're starting the podcast on this. I was like, I have to go. I got to go back to the hotel, and so they took me back to the hotel and then it just went downhill fast.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: The motivation to rufy someone that's with a crew is lost on me. Not that I understand the other motivation, but if I were going to be a roofy person, I would look for a vulnerable person by themselves.

00:04:04
Speaker 3: Right, you have people with you and do you think it was the fan?

00:04:08
Speaker 1: Well, I think what happened is not to speculate, but the person she was with, this other woman. I don't know what their relationship details were, but that girl did not like that. The other girl bought me a drink and she came over and said something really smart to me, and I just brushed it off, and I was.

00:04:29
Speaker 4: Like, man, that was really weird energy.

00:04:31
Speaker 1: I didn't approach them, they approached me, So this is very odd that she's starting trying to start beef with me. So I just was like, I'm just going to consume this drink and then not, you know, try to talk to him anymore. And the doctor says he believes that she poured a significant amount of vizine eye drops in my drink, So.

00:04:51
Speaker 2: Not predatory as in somebody trying to take you home with them, but maybe just to hurt you.

00:04:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it was. I think it was that I was crazy.

00:04:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, it was the first time I've ever experienced that kind of energy, and I was so sick. And I think she just did it just because she was mad at the other girl for buying me a drink. Yeah, And I'm not kidding when I say I literally threw up seventy times in two days, like I thought I was. At one point, I thought I was gonna die because I was hallucinating in my hotel room by myself at three o'clock in the morning. And I just weirdly called my step mom at three o'clock in the morning. I don't even remember doing this, and she was like, are you okay? And I was talking about just the weirdest stuff, and so she called an ambulance. They came and got me. Sorry, no, they did not come and get me. She called the ambulance and the nurse. And this is a true story. The nurse in her Honda Accord drove to my hotel because she was a big fan of me, and picked me up in her Honda Accord as I was throwing up out the window. Wow, So shout out. I cannot remember her name. I need to look it up. Shout out to the nurse in Hattiesburg that drives the white Honda Accord.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: It feels like you were collateral damage in a very unhealthy relationship.

00:05:59
Speaker 1: Yes, I was one hundred percent collateral damage in a lesbian psychotic relationship. And I can say that, okay, the it was psychotic behavior.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: Have you heard from either one of them since even on social media. No, like DM Bernard DM anything like that.

00:06:14
Speaker 4: No, no, I think that.

00:06:15
Speaker 1: I think that girl's probably like because I told a story about it without pointing fingers at them.

00:06:20
Speaker 4: I just said I got really sick.

00:06:21
Speaker 3: Like I show a story like a bit.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: No, just I was just saying like, hey, you got to be careful of who take you know, who you take drinks from. I was like, cause, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I threw up seventy times. And then I'm sure she probably saw that and was like viazine does the trick?

00:06:38
Speaker 2: The picture that I saw of you, it was like this many years ago or it's something like that, and it was you selling real estate. Yeah, that was such a cool picture like that that made me like feel don't feel much. That made me feel a little yeah. Yeah, So you started out like professionally trying to do real estate or were you successful at it?

00:06:55
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well no, no, it was not. I was.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: I was selling like maybe six or so up in houses a year that were like between eighty and one hundred thousand dollars in my hometown in Alabama, So my commission was like two thousand dollars a sale. So then I was like, okay, wait, if I'm going to grow this business, I got to find a way to actually pay my bills. So I started doing softball lessons in softball camps, and that was kind of just to make ends meet.

00:07:19
Speaker 4: But I did a little bit of everything.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: I did pharmaceutical sales, real estate, sports, broadcasting, softball camps. I even worked in a pyramid scheme. Bobby, which one beach Body.

00:07:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got the videos. Yeah, like that was a pyramid scheme.

00:07:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, brother, hip hop abs and.

00:07:36
Speaker 2: I would see the commercials and I think I probably dabbled in that a bit.

00:07:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:07:39
Speaker 1: I mean they make great programs, but you know, getting you like your grandmother, your aunt, your uncle, your cousins all to sign up. Eventually they stop inviting you to the family get togethers. And because I was annoying about.

00:07:50
Speaker 3: It, your whole family at Beach Bodies. That's awesome. Yes, literally all abs at everything.

00:07:54
Speaker 1: Well, they weren't doing them programs, but on paper they were.

00:07:58
Speaker 3: How did that Did you make any money doing that at all?

00:08:00
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah you could.

00:08:01
Speaker 1: You could actually do really well as long as you were using social media. I mean, and that's that's actually like I'm I'm I'm embarrassed about it, you know, because of the whole pyramid scheme stuff. But it's what taught me how to use social media, because I had to create reels and tiktoks in order to get people signed up.

00:08:22
Speaker 3: I think I did beach Body for a minute.

00:08:24
Speaker 4: You did hip hop abs with Sean t.

00:08:26
Speaker 3: Because Beach Body, the hip hop abs didn't take very.

00:08:29
Speaker 1: Long, no and yeah, and you didn't want to be seen doing it, and you could.

00:08:34
Speaker 4: This would be a great.

00:08:35
Speaker 1: Setup to You could actually start hip hop ad classes in here.

00:08:38
Speaker 4: This would be perfect.

00:08:39
Speaker 3: You mean keep them going. We actually do them every Tuesday.

00:08:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, well buy me next time. I know them.

00:08:43
Speaker 3: We did Tybo in college.

00:08:45
Speaker 4: I know them.

00:08:45
Speaker 3: You ever do Tybo?

00:08:46
Speaker 1: I don't even know what Tabo is. Sounds like a nickname from somebody back home.

00:08:51
Speaker 2: Tibo Tibo was like Billy Blanks and it was a like a karate exercise class.

00:08:57
Speaker 3: It was much like Beach Body.

00:08:58
Speaker 2: Like I was in the phase of just I don't have friends, so I would buy stuff and do workouts with people on screen.

00:09:03
Speaker 4: Got it?

00:09:04
Speaker 2: So I did all those workouts with people that I thought were my friends. They were supplement to my friend groups.

00:09:10
Speaker 1: I mean listen, not to throw complete shade. There was honestly like the community with those types of things, like people are actually you know, changing their lives and they're getting healthier and they're losing weight. It's just once you can you know, lift the veil of like how kind of crazy that structure of the payout and all that is, you know, you kind of lose what the intentions are behind it. But the programs themselves, like shout out to Beach Body, they did a great job.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: Did you have a first video that went viral? Do you remember?

00:09:42
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:09:42
Speaker 3: My first one was your first video ever.

00:09:45
Speaker 1: No, no, not my first one, no, but my very first viral video. I just randomly. I was only posting fitness stuff at this point. That's how I was making a living. And one day I prank phone called a taxidermis in twenty twenty one from Alabama and asked him if he would stuff my dog. And I thought he would be like, no, no, we can't do that, but instead he threw me for a loop and he was like, yeah, absolutely, we do it all the time.

00:10:11
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, I haven't thought this for ahead.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, great, Uh, well, how do I get him to you? And he was like, well, where is he right now? And I was like, well, he's in he's in the deep freezer. And this man was like, You've done everything right to this point, and.

00:10:28
Speaker 4: I was like, this is unbelievable.

00:10:31
Speaker 1: So I clipped it and I posted it on TikTok, and within like a week it had like twenty one million views.

00:10:37
Speaker 4: It was wow, that's super viral, dude.

00:10:39
Speaker 1: It was absurd, and I woke up the next day I think I had maybe like fifty thousand TikTok followers, and I woke up the next day with two hundred and fifty thousand, Like it just literally changed my life. So I posted another one the next day of me prank phone calling a dairy queen and asked him if they I could bring a tupperware container in to fill it up with the hot syrup to put it on my husband. And it got like twelve million views, and then again another one got ten and then another one. At the time, I was the only person on TikTok posting prank phone calls, so it worked to my advantage. But then other people started doing it, and so I was like, well, I don't want to just be known as the prank caller, so I started dabbling in like sketches and characters and stuff like that.

00:11:25
Speaker 3: Did you make any money doing that on TikTok?

00:11:28
Speaker 4: The Creator Fund is really weird.

00:11:30
Speaker 1: Obviously on that video, I think I made a couple of thousand dollars. But the Creator Fund, I've noticed, as your followers, and I hope TikTok doesn't see this and like shadow ban me or something, but as your followers increase, your payout decreases. So like you, when I was just starting, I was actually making more money on the Creator Fund than I am now because they kind of almost want to reward the newer creators.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: I felt because I got in the Creator Fund for a while, but I felt like they were suppressing my videos where they would not hit as hard normally, because when I got out, it kind of proved that, yeah, because I was, I wasn't doing anything any different, but like the same type of video with Then once I got out of the Creator Fund and they have to pay anymore, right, they would pop more. And so I really wasn't using that as like a mainstream of income. So I just stayed out of the Creator Fund, but I found the same thing. Is that generally how people feel about that.

00:12:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of my friends don't don't do the Creator Fund for that reason. I've toggled it on and toggled it off. I can't tell a difference all my stuff, but a lot of my friends, who are you know, influencers or comedians, they will not use it because they're like, the money I'm making is not worth it over the engagement and the views I'm going to get.

00:12:47
Speaker 3: You came up on my for you page.

00:12:49
Speaker 2: I follow you, but you came up on my for you page the other day and you were doing a joke about I think it was your dad's saying, don't.

00:12:56
Speaker 3: Shave your head.

00:12:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, buzz coat my hair.

00:12:58
Speaker 3: And it's a good joke.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: And also but I was like, oh, wow, she's actually posting material because I was never good enough to post material meeting. My material was good, but I didn't have.

00:13:07
Speaker 3: Enough of it.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: Well, it's weird too because I'm still doing the same set. So it's the first time tour right now that I'm on and I only have nine more shows and that I'm done, so it's very weird. You have to like pick and shoes. You know, you have to pick and choose which jokes you're willing to burn, because if I pick one of my bigger jokes, I have to rewrite twenty minutes of my set because then they know the joke. And I don't do a ton of crowd work. So crowd work's kind of the only way to be able to constantly circulate comedic stuff. But I don't do a whole lot of crowd work. I have a really hard time having a joke at the expense of other people. I hate making somebody leave my show feeling like I bully them or I made them feel embarrassed or humiliated, and so I don't do a lot of crowd work, and if I do, it's more of me, kind of like laughing with them instead of laughing at them. But yeah, it's I'm now getting to the point where after these nine shows all have filmed my whole set and I can start burning every single joke. So get ready, Bobby, because I think that's all my page is gonna be.

00:14:11
Speaker 2: That was my fear was I will because it's not like a song where a lot of our friends can play and put a song out and then they people want to hear the song again. Yeah, they want to hear it every time they do a show. Once you hear a joke, you kind of it's kind of dead.

00:14:25
Speaker 4: It's done.

00:14:26
Speaker 2: And so I would be like, I'm not posting anything except like crowd interactions because I knew those they were never gonna happen again because it was all circumstantial to that night and those people.

00:14:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, I saw it and I.

00:14:37
Speaker 2: Was like, oh, wow, that's a good joke, and a little bit I was like, wow, I can't belive she's posted a joke, right right, actually still touring.

00:14:42
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, because that I still use it.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: I had two shows this weekend and I still used it, and I noticed that it still got the same type of laughter. Because I have to remind myself not every single person at my show has seen every single video I post. But yeah, dude, this weekend, I'd love to know you take on this. This weekend, I had two women in the middle of my set get into a full blown physical altercation and one of them got arrested.

00:15:10
Speaker 4: And now I'm like, I want to.

00:15:11
Speaker 1: Post that, But do I need to blur their faces out or do they deserve it? I feel like I might need to put like an emoji over their face.

00:15:18
Speaker 2: I think it actually probably gets more traction if you do blur it.

00:15:21
Speaker 3: It makes it more like yeah, uh naughty.

00:15:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: I'm like I shouldn't be watching.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: That right And in my mind, I'm like, what would Gavin Adcock? Do you know?

00:15:31
Speaker 3: He'd yell at Beyonce?

00:15:35
Speaker 4: I need to.

00:15:35
Speaker 1: Find six other people that are doing very well right now, and I need to absolutely annihilate them in what way? Just every way? Bobby like online, like start a feud, Yeah, start a feud. I'm going to start a feud tonight when I get home. I'm gonna see if I can't get a feud going with Luke Bryan and see where that takes me. And then if Luke doesn't bite, I'll I'll maybe go for like a gospel artist.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, mostly for what happens with that after you die, Right, that's true more than what happens today.

00:16:04
Speaker 4: It is true.

00:16:05
Speaker 3: That's a bad investment for the future.

00:16:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe not a go Okay, we'll do maybe I don't know, Maybe I start one with Carrie Underwood or something. I don't know, just to shake things up for her. You know, why were the people fighting one of them. I started into a joke about my coming out story when I was twenty four, and uh, the lady on the second row was a gay woman. The lady on the third row was there with her husband, and she said, apparently I don't know this to be true, but she said, why is she talking about lesbian stuff? And the woman on the second row turned around and said, because she is one, And the lady was like, well, I wish she'd stop.

00:16:41
Speaker 4: And my whole.

00:16:42
Speaker 1: Set is not you know, gay this, gay that, but I do have like a good solid ten minutes of my coming out story living in Alabama, because that alone is is hilarious. And they started getting into it, and I had to stop my show for about five minutes and like do like a therapy session because I thought we were headed for a rally, you know, like I thought this was about to turn into a rally in Treeport, And so I got them quieted down and then you just see me walk off stage at the end of my set, and they get into like it looks like a wrestling gridlock where one lady's got her by the back of the head and the other woman's got her by the back of the head and they're just giving each other hell and then they finally like separate. The husband gets in between, and then the next video is a police officer putting handcuffs on the woman who made the lesbian comment.

00:17:35
Speaker 3: And you have it.

00:17:35
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I've got it.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: I'd for sure, I'd blow their faces out, for sure, but i'd put it up. Yeah.

00:17:40
Speaker 2: I was doing a show on Massachusetts once and somebody yelled, I will shoot you, and.

00:17:43
Speaker 3: So every Massachusetts Yeah yeah.

00:17:46
Speaker 2: It was in like outside of Springfield, Massachusetts, and so everybody starts to yell, Oh my god. Obviously it's dark out there, so I can't see what's happening. Also, I didn't say anything that made them want to shoot me, but I'm like, oh god, So the lights flip up, the cops are out people that they are escorting people out of the theater. But I was told this is in like my first year of ever touring, like you have to hit fifty minutes or fifty whatever's in the contract. Yeah, So I just sat down on the stage because I was like, I'm not going to not get paid. So I sat down on the stage to make sure I did not leave for fifty five minutes. I didn't understand the rules. I could go back and then come back right, so, but they ended up arresting somebody. It was like somebody kept talking, like talking, like if it's a comedy show, like the worst thing that we can have doing spoken word, Hey it can be a poetry show, is somebody talking because it's going to interrupt our rhythm and our cadence. And it doesn't help us when you like talk with us, No.

00:18:44
Speaker 1: Not at all, And in fact, it throws it throws everything off. It also just doesn't make for a fun environment for everybody else, you know, like that's sitting around them because they're constantly having to listen to them. And when I first started, I didn't know how to handle that. So I just let it go and go and go. And now I'll give them a warning in a very nice way, like hey, baby, can we can we quiet down just a little bit. And then but it's hard to follow the rules when you're drunk. You know, being drunk and following the rules don't go together. So after I've given them a warning, then I have a code word with my security team. And once I say that code word in the set, because it keeps me from having to look like a bad guy. Once I say that code word, they go over and they don't grab them, but they say, can can you come outside with us?

00:19:29
Speaker 3: And then yeah, it sucks to have to do that because they're there. They're they're there because they're.

00:19:34
Speaker 2: Like your person, right, and it sucks to have to go like, hey, you got to shut up, right, because you're ruining it for everyone. And that's what that fight was about that night. It was specifically about somebody talking and even like talking back to me a little bit during the set, right, but it was running their time, and they're like, you got to stop, and that turns into U and one yell's I'll shoot you, and so everybody scrambled and left, and I obviously I never got the room back. Everybody came back in and we went along and finished the show, but I never got the room back. That that obliterated any sort of continuity of the night.

00:20:03
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I had a woman lay down.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: The closest I got to a situation like that is I had a woman lay down for twenty five minutes. She had army, crawled from her seat to the handicap ramp and grabbed the rail and she.

00:20:18
Speaker 4: Was like, I ain't leaving. I'm her cousin.

00:20:21
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, do I have a cousin in Arizona. I was like, oh my god, I hope not.

00:20:26
Speaker 4: No, I literally did.

00:20:27
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm racking my brain of which crazy cousin is at my show right now. So I had to get off stage, go down there and like reason with her like an FBI agent and be like, hey, if you'll get up, I'll take you to dinner tonight. And that was the only thing that got her up on her feet, and then they escorted her out of the venue. She punches a police officer in the face in the like in the nose. They arrest her, and then her wife comes to the meet and greet later, and I was just like that was when I started to realize my brand is a lot roudier than I ever thought. It was like like the it's got kind of like a it's like a like a show for the good old boys and the gays, and it's like you really don't know if the NRA sponsoring it or if Glad sponsoring it.

00:21:15
Speaker 4: Like it's just very you.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: Need to separate them like at a wedding too. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. So this side you're here, what you do your meet greats after the show? Yeah, yeah, that could be problematic too, And it is they're drunker, then they're drunk.

00:21:29
Speaker 1: And because of my most popular song, they gift every meet and greet, I get gifted he said, a dildo every meet and Greek, and they want me to sign it and they want me to take pictures with it, and it's usually always their husband's taking the pictures, and so they're.

00:21:46
Speaker 4: A lot rowdier. Like I always thought that.

00:21:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't really know what I thought my brand was, but this year has really showed that it is much roudier than I anticipated. Like I went to Rock the South this summer in Coleman and I had to do three corps lot shotguns with three different men, and a man pinched off a Copenhagen thing out of his pocket and put it in my lip for a picture. And that was when I was like, man, like, I might need to dial it down a little bit.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: I think it's a mixture of your warmth and people feel like they know you, they like you, they're close to you, even if they're not. So there's this automatic there's no barrier, right because they feel like they know and that is that's a huge compliment. But also, as you can see, it gets to a point where it starts feel a bit dangerous.

00:22:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: For me, it was when people were kissing me. Yeah, I had to stop and be like I can't.

00:22:38
Speaker 3: Like.

00:22:38
Speaker 2: I love that people feel like they know me, right, but when they're like grabbing me and like kissing me on the face and stuff, I'm like, I don't like that. Man, thank you for enjoying what I do, but no touching like that.

00:22:51
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.

00:22:52
Speaker 1: No, I feel that I signed a girls piece of paper and then the next day she sent me a video of of a tattoo of my signature on her right butt cheek, and I was.

00:23:04
Speaker 3: Just like, cheek.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: I was like, I was just like, oh.

00:23:08
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so it just yeah, it's been jarring because I like, I think, because of what you do and what I do, you're people are always consuming your voice and they're always seeing your face and same with me on social media, so it does create a very intimate relationship for them, which I love. I want to feel very connected to my fans, but when stuff like you know, like the kissing stuff happens, you're like, oh, man, Like man, they they're a little too comfortable with that.

00:23:35
Speaker 3: And you're right. If you say something, you're the bad guy.

00:23:37
Speaker 2: So you got to have somebody that's there with you, right, that makes sure that doesn't happen.

00:23:42
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, kissing stuff, it's going to gross me out.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: And that's when I had to go a I I'm so honored, But no lips on any part of my body.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: You know, when I was single for for this past year, nobody ever wanted to kiss me, which now my feelings are a little hurt, Bobby, because I never had any free kisses after my So.

00:24:01
Speaker 2: I should dig your meat greets before though, Yeah, I should be because then at the end of the show, you're done.

00:24:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's such relief. You don't need my advice. I change because I used to do that, but I just liked at the end of the show to be done. Get my crap.

00:24:14
Speaker 2: If I want to go eat with my people, if I want to go find a fly home.

00:24:18
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm so weird about pre show anything. I won't let family, friends or anybody come into the green room before the show because my energy is just so different.

00:24:27
Speaker 4: I think it might.

00:24:28
Speaker 1: It might throw me off in the odd chance that one of them says something that is weird or condescending right before I go out on stage. So I like to kind of keep all of the the energy for after the show once I've already performed, just because I'm so weird. Like even my dad he'll be like, can we come back and see you in the green room, And I'm like, I'll see you after, dad.

00:24:48
Speaker 3: Pre show, Yeah, pre show.

00:24:50
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:25:04
Speaker 3: Where did you grow up in Alabama?

00:25:06
Speaker 1: I grew up in a little town called Morris. It's like thirty twenty thirty minutes north of Birmingham, about eleven hundred people.

00:25:15
Speaker 3: Were you a lesbian there?

00:25:16
Speaker 4: Maybe I've been a lesbian for a long time.

00:25:18
Speaker 3: No, not what I mean. Were you a lesbian where you were living and people knew it?

00:25:23
Speaker 4: No?

00:25:24
Speaker 1: No, I didn't come out until I was twenty four. But it was hard, Bobby, because I was you know, I was dressing like Morgan Wallen but trying to get a boyfriend, and that's really hard to do in Alabama, you know. But I was I've known I was gay since I was like eight years old. I didn't know what the word gay meant, you know, and would I would like see Rosie O'Donnell on TV as a kid and be like, I can kind of see something there that reminds me of me, but not really, but like, we didn't use the word gay growing up in Alabama ever. And then I told my parents when i'd come home from second grade, I was like, hey, I don't really know what's going on with me, but I've noticed all the boys in my class like the girls, and all the girls like the boys, but I like the girls. And so a couple of weeks after that conversation, I was taken to what's called conversion therapy, which I think, Mike, I don't know, it might be illegal now, but so I just straight away from that topic completely. After that conversation, I was like, I don't want to do anything that would bring shame to my family or embarrassment to me, So I'm going to stay completely away from that. And then once I graduated from college, I was like, man, there's no like, there's no going back, Like I'm as gay as a football bat.

00:26:44
Speaker 4: So I just was like, I'm going to tell my mom and.

00:26:46
Speaker 2: That, what is conversion therapy like in Alabama? I mean at all, but I mean in Alabama feels like it's extra CONVERSI yeah.

00:26:53
Speaker 4: It does, right.

00:26:54
Speaker 1: Uh. I don't really know if my conversion therapist was a legit therapist. He always sat in a recliner with his feet up when I walked in, and he always was eating a sandwich out of his zip lock bag that his wife had sent him, and he was always just working on getting that white bread mayonnaise like unstuck from the roof of his mouth, you know.

00:27:17
Speaker 4: But he would always.

00:27:18
Speaker 1: Say because I remember this because he said it every single time it was one on one therapy with me and this guy, and he would always look at me and he would say, Denay, it is not a sin to think about robbing the bank, but it is a sin to rob it. And as an eight year old or nine ten, however old it was in second grade, I could remember being so confused because I was like, what did my parents tell him I don't want to be a bank robber?

00:27:48
Speaker 3: Like where do his analogies with an eight or nine year old?

00:27:50
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was like, what is he talking about? I don't want to rob a bank.

00:27:53
Speaker 1: I like girls, you know, And so it was just a lot of like using like things like that to bring shame onto the idea of like acting out on it, if you will. I didn't go to him for a terribly long time, but I went to him long enough to where the things he said. I was at such an impressionable young age that like those things really. I mean, I'm thirty two now and I can still quote that thing that he said because he said it every single day.

00:28:22
Speaker 2: Did your parents feel like you were being converted in conversion therapy?

00:28:27
Speaker 4: You know?

00:28:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if at that age they were too concerned about that. I think at that age they were just very protective of me. And I have a lot of empathy for my parents. I know there's a lot of people that want me to be so mad at them, and you know, speak ill of that time in my life. And this might be controversial or it might be like a hot take, but it was nineteen ninety or two thousand ish, you know, and eleven hundred people in my small town, and they were true in their minds. I can understand even if they went about it in the wrong way, because I would do it differently if I had a kid, But in their minds, they had never been confronted with anything like that, and I think in their minds they knew that if I was different than everybody in my class because there was not a single gay person. I think they were just like, we don't want to see our child who has such a big heart and wears heart on her sleeve and truly has a love for life, like I'm such a happy person by nature, and I was that way as a kid, And I think they were just trying to protect me from being bullied or ostracized, because my dad has told me a million times he's like, yes, did we go about it the wrong way? Absolutely, But I wanted you to be able to make that decision when you were emotionally equipped to deal with some of the hate and judgment that was going to come with it. Even though I don't think that hate and judgment was warranted, I would be stupid to think and delusional to think that it wouldn't happen. So I was trying to protect you in a way, but I went about it in a way that I shouldn't have.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: Do you and your dad still have a close relationship.

00:30:05
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, my dad's my best friend.

00:30:06
Speaker 1: My dad is absolutely just the greatest thing on earth as far as I'm concerned.

00:30:13
Speaker 3: So I assume he's more accepting.

00:30:17
Speaker 4: Than Oh yeah.

00:30:17
Speaker 1: If I told my dad I wanted him to hang a gay Pride flag, he'd.

00:30:21
Speaker 4: Be like, oh shit, but I'll do it. If that's what you need from me, I'll do it.

00:30:27
Speaker 3: When did that turn happen?

00:30:30
Speaker 1: That happened about the time i'd come out, about twenty four. So you know, the first thing my dad said to me when I came out is he looked at me stone cold, and I thought he was about to be mean. He just looked at me and he said, well, baby, at least you can't get pregnant. And then he was like, good luck telling you, mama. You know. So he brought humor to it because that's helped me and him connect and then ever since then, he's ever made a single comment that I felt was hurtful. So my dad's a great My dad is a great example of just loving your child unconditionally.

00:31:15
Speaker 2: I think you're the best athlete that I know, and I know some good athletes. I know professional athletes. I do an NFL show with a former NFL quarterback. I still think you're the best athlete that Bobby.

00:31:26
Speaker 4: That is so kind of you.

00:31:27
Speaker 1: That is the greatest compliment I can be given because I devoted so much of my life to that.

00:31:31
Speaker 4: So thank you for saying that.

00:31:32
Speaker 2: It's crazy like we played golf. It's the last time I actually played golf was the time I played with you. Some would say I quit because I got beat by you.

00:31:39
Speaker 3: Some would say I quit because I won.

00:31:42
Speaker 4: I guess not, like I.

00:31:45
Speaker 2: Knew people that knew you, and we had talked on social media before and I didn't have to worry about dming you and my wife seeing it because you're gay.

00:31:50
Speaker 3: She was right, who cares?

00:31:51
Speaker 4: The best part?

00:31:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so.

00:31:54
Speaker 2: I saw you playing like on a Tuesday afternoon, and so I just messaged you and I was like, hey, I don't have friends can play it midday afternoons either. My job's weird, so I do have like one o'clock I can play golf sometimes on a weekday.

00:32:06
Speaker 3: And I was like, let's play.

00:32:07
Speaker 2: And we tried a couple times and you were gone or I was gone, and finally we got we went and played and and I've played with good female golfers.

00:32:14
Speaker 3: And this is gonna offend somebody, I just don't know who.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: But you didn't even play from the women's teas, and I will because I there's like a part of me when I do play with women golfers, I always forget to stop at the red teas because most of the time we don't play with women, and so we don't stop. We all play at the blues or the whites or no. I never played tips, and so then we just always forget. And I was like, god, dang it, I should have stopped at the red tees. And I thought, I'm going to play with d nave. I don't have to stop all the time at the red teas. No, not only did I not have to stop at the red teas, you do not play there like you beat me like from.

00:32:48
Speaker 3: The same teas.

00:32:50
Speaker 2: It was why and it wasn't just And again this I hope this isn't like roofie creepy, but like you move like such an athlete, Like your body, your physiology is that of an athlete, where I'm just like, man, you're and then I learned that you are also a Division one softball player in all but yeah, I think the best athlete.

00:33:08
Speaker 4: I know that is very kind of you. Thank you.

00:33:10
Speaker 1: I I just yeah, I would say athletics has always come extremely easy for me. I can move my body like how I want to move it, whether it's wakeboarding or golfing or softball. I just have a lot of control over my body. But it was never the thing I was the most passionate about, which is funny that that's when people ask me, why did you get started in comedy in your thirties, And I'm like, well, the arts were not celebrated where I grew up. If you wanted to be celebrated and you wanted to be cool, you played, you played sports.

00:33:46
Speaker 4: So but golf is.

00:33:48
Speaker 1: Something I've I've gotten into now that softball's over with, and I am so ultra competitive that it's I'll go out and play with myself and I just want to I just want to beat my score yesterday.

00:34:00
Speaker 4: So I appreciate you saying that, because I really do love golf.

00:34:03
Speaker 3: She didn't beat me bad, by the way, I think.

00:34:04
Speaker 1: No, it was if somebody's listening to this and they're like, oh, I'm gonna go play with.

00:34:09
Speaker 4: To day and she's going to be a scratch golfer.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: Absolutely not if you played from the red teas probably.

00:34:16
Speaker 4: When I was playing.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: So I don't play from the red tea's because I only play with guys and like that same thing every time I forget to tee off there or they pass it. So I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna play with them, and that way I can have better conversations with them because I'm not getting out at an awkward spot.

00:34:31
Speaker 3: Because a lot of the talk is on the tea box or the green Yeah.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: When I when I was playing from the reds consistently and taking lessons, which is that helped a bunch. But I was shooting in the eighties, like the the low eighties pretty frequently, and then I stopped completely playing for like three years. And it's you know, it's like riding a bicycle sometimes when it comes to driving, and then other times it's like the first time you've picked up a driver. It feels like So it's take I have to be playing consistently to feel really good.

00:34:59
Speaker 3: I gotta imagine you were really good high school softball player.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, in high school, in high school as a shit bobby, I ain't gonna lie. I think I hold that I did hold the state record for most RBIs in a season. I think I had seventy seven, and I was the only player from Alabama to be chosen to play in the ever to be played in the under Armor All American Game. I think I had close to like seventy. I want to stay close to seventy career home runs.

00:35:27
Speaker 3: That's crazy.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: But I was much bigger back then too, which was you didn't see a short stop at one hundred and seventy pounds. I weighed like one twenty eight now, But I was one hundred and like sixty five seventy pounds consistently, and I could I could just move really good laterally. And then when I got to Alabama, I was much better on defense than I was at the plate, which was so frustrating for me because again I was known for being a power hitter.

00:35:54
Speaker 4: I was the three to four hole hitter, and.

00:35:56
Speaker 1: Then I got to Alabama and just completely had a mental breakdown at the plate for three out of the four years.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: But I held my own on defense.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: I think I had like I think I had four ESPN Top ten plays on defense.

00:36:08
Speaker 3: So that's that's crazy.

00:36:10
Speaker 4: That's my that's my claim. To fame.

00:36:12
Speaker 1: When people look at my stats at Alabama, it doesn't tell the full story because I would like for them to pencil in four ESPN Top ten plays. That'd be really nice because then they see a two seventy hitter at the plate and I'm.

00:36:22
Speaker 3: Like, where did you play?

00:36:25
Speaker 4: Position?

00:36:26
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:36:26
Speaker 4: Short stop?

00:36:27
Speaker 1: My well, my freshman year when we won the Natty, I was at second base. Hated it because it's like a foreign language going from shortstop to second. And then sophomore, junior, senior.

00:36:37
Speaker 3: I played short won national championship.

00:36:39
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah against Oklahoma.

00:36:41
Speaker 3: That's crazy.

00:36:42
Speaker 4: Don't tell Patty. Don't don't rub it in Patty's face.

00:36:45
Speaker 2: I remember I told DJ, my brother in law, Patty's son, guess. So I was like, hey, I played golf, and he was like, man, she was a scrappy ball player, like he remembered it.

00:36:53
Speaker 4: Okay.

00:36:53
Speaker 1: Also, because I wonder sometimes I never had I never had a like a big ego. I was like when I played, I just I wonder. Now I'm like, I wonder if Patty remembers me.

00:37:07
Speaker 2: She remembers everybody. Yeah, yeah, I mean she's that kind of coach. Okay, good, well, that makes it feel about every detail, every person, good or bad.

00:37:14
Speaker 1: Like I remember this one play and I'll have to show you after and I can send it to you. But I remember this one play. Ball was popped up in foul territory right behind the third base bag. I'm running over, just waving people off because it's an easy can of corn for the third baseman. She trips on the bag and I look down out of the corner of my eye and I see her on the ground, and I'm like, oh my god, I got to catch this ball.

00:37:36
Speaker 4: So I do art to go catch it.

00:37:37
Speaker 1: And as I'm about to catch it, Patty stands in the coaching box because she doesn't have to move, and she stands there and makes me catch this ball around her body. And after I caught it, I just remember her thinking, like I could see her face and she was just like how did she do that? And I wanted to be like, why didn't you move, Patty, Like.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Dang man, that is I mean that that many even one ESPN Top ten play, even to be a Division one athlete, Like, there's so many things. That's why I think I think you're the best pure athlete that I know.

00:38:07
Speaker 3: And I didn't expect it.

00:38:08
Speaker 1: Well, that'll be the biggest compliment I have received in twenty twenty five, So thank you.

00:38:12
Speaker 2: I also think you're very brave, and not even in like the typical things that people would be like, oh you're so brave with the you know, uh coming out or being from the South.

00:38:21
Speaker 3: I just think you're brave to start doing comedy.

00:38:23
Speaker 2: Thank you, because without a comedy background, and I say this to somebody without a comedy background that just jumped in, it's it's really hard. Yeah, and you're way better than I was.

00:38:35
Speaker 1: Well, that's very kind of you, but it you hit the nail on the head. It's I was just talking to somebody about this yesterday.

00:38:44
Speaker 4: I don't know why I thought.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: I could do this the way that I did it, But the first time I ever did stand up comedy was an hour headlining show, which I don't know now, knowing or knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have signed up for that.

00:39:01
Speaker 4: But there is.

00:39:04
Speaker 1: You know, ignorance is bliss, and ignorance sometimes can give you delusion. And so I think, not knowing how hard it was going to be, or not knowing like the ebbs and flows of comedy, I was like, yeah, I'll do it.

00:39:16
Speaker 4: How hard can it be?

00:39:17
Speaker 3: You know?

00:39:17
Speaker 1: And I was just telling my girlfriend this last night. I was like, the secret ingredient for me and for anybody else that I've found to admire is you have to have a state of delusion in whatever you're doing. You have to be delusional. And I am one hundred percent deliciously healthy.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: I just said a whole podcast about that.

00:39:39
Speaker 2: Like the truly successful people that I know, the one thing they have in common is delusion that they think they can do it.

00:39:48
Speaker 3: Because without that, without the.

00:39:50
Speaker 2: Delusion of doing something that you've never done, like, you don't even try unless you're a little crazy.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: Well, and I when we played golf, we got to spend like four or five hours together and I really got to know you that day. And I remember calling my dad after our round and he was like, how did they go with Bobby? I was like, Dad, he is so fascinating because he isn't afraid to try things. And I was like, I know this might sound cheesy because I'm bringing up like a dancing competition and it may seem low stakes to the other things that you do in life, but I was fascinated that you were willing to sign up for that competition and win it, by the way, because that is you're putting yourself out there every single night on live television, doing something you've never done before, and you started it with zero confidence. But that I was just really inspired after that round of golf with you, because I was just like, he lives a life that I admired that I want to do and I want to be more like that. And I was like, I wonder what that is that he has. And I was really thinking on that because I really study people, like I really I'm always wanting to like level my life up. And I think the same thing I just said about that state of delusion and bravery is the same thing you've carried throughout your you know, your whole career is you really are not afraid to put yourself out there.

00:41:10
Speaker 4: You're not afraid for.

00:41:11
Speaker 1: People to be like, why did he get that gig? And then you go out there and you show them why you got the gig. Like I've just been very talking about specifically, the American Idol thing, to me, I thought was just like I would have been scared shitless to take that because even though you're so well versed in music. That to me was just a completely different thing than other things that you've done. And you're also having to stand side by side with Ryan Seacrest, who's been doing that for decades, and that could have been very intimidating, and I'm sure it was, but you knocked it out of the park. And then I saw your recent podcast about the leverage you had after you initially signed a particular contract per episode, after they saw what you could do and how awesome you did it, you were able to leverage that into a business opportunity, and I just I'm very and I'm not you know, I'm not trying to like boost your ego right now, but I'm very fascinated with how you've done things in this business and it's been something that I'm trying to kind of take a feather from your cap, and I thinks.

00:42:12
Speaker 3: That's nice that. Yeah, I can't wait for you to Dancing with the Stars.

00:42:14
Speaker 1: I would love that, although I really, I really hope they don't make me wear heels, but I know I will. That would be the hardest thing for me. It's not the dancing, it'd be learning how to walk in the heel.

00:42:24
Speaker 3: That's the one thing that's funny. I did see you signed with a new agent.

00:42:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:42:30
Speaker 1: Well I've been with them now for two years. They were a little slow on the press relate.

00:42:35
Speaker 3: That's the slowest press release I've ever seen.

00:42:36
Speaker 1: I think they were waiting to see if I was going to get canceled. They were like, we're going to try and give her two years of not being canceled. If she can make it for two years, then we'll we'll announce it. We'll put her name on it.

00:42:45
Speaker 3: It was like danae it signed SI.

00:42:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that because that's I was with CAA for like ten years and loved him, and it was like for you know, other opportunities which you know, when I look at your career, it's like not I'm surprised that you want to do that stuff. It's like like what can you not do? Thank you, because there's nothing really that. The hardest thing is getting up on stage. Of everything that I've ever done, the hardest thing is getting up on stage, blank blank canvas and just you just it's just you go ahead and entertain for.

00:43:12
Speaker 3: Fifty to fifty five minutes. Yeah, that's if you can do that.

00:43:15
Speaker 2: I'm convinced you can do anything, especially when it comes to the creative world, Like if you can do medium stand up comedy.

00:43:21
Speaker 3: I agree, you can do anything.

00:43:22
Speaker 1: I agree, because there's there's a lot of people that I'll be in the room with that I'm like, I think they're funnier than I am. Why aren't they doing stand up? And then I start again, I go back to that analyzing thing, and uh, it's a they're really funny when there's things to interact with. But you're right, with stand up, there's nobody out there interacting with you. Unless you're doing crowd work. You literally are having to create something out of thin air with nobody talking to you. And yeah, it's challenging, but I'm addicted to it.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially that feeling of when you try a joke for the first time and it hits. That's the greatest feeling. Because how I would do my set was I know that everybody out there is excited for the night, and the first twelve minutes are free there.

00:44:09
Speaker 3: It is matter what I say.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: They're there, they're gonna laugh at everything for the first about twelve minutes. There's going to be a point where now they've paid their money for their ticket and so they expect to be entertained, not just on the premise that we're all here together, and I kind of I could to kind of feel where that was, and so that's where I would try my first Okay, let's see if this works, And when I would get that non reaction, that's when I knew it was on. I have to earn everything from here. That was kind of the most exciting part of the night. Now, sometimes it didn't feel great, but it was always when it didn't work, because it didn't always work. Most of the times it didn't work at first if it was something new, but it was always the most exciting because I had to earn it from that point on. So when it did hit, God, it felt it was awesome. And then if it didn't hit, it had stuff I could go to. I'd go right back to the for sure home runs, right because I didn't want to put out two turns in a row, so I'd go right back to the home runs. But man, when you try something new and there's like a half second of hesitation where you're waiting to see if they laugh, and they do, it's it's like a sprinkle of joy in my stomach that I remember, like oh my god, that works and it will always work.

00:45:16
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's this dopamine, yes for sure. And that's that addicting feeling.

00:45:23
Speaker 4: And I mean.

00:45:26
Speaker 1: I try stuff out like and I know you do this too, Like if we're in like a like a group setting, and I know I have a show the next day and I want to try something new, I'll try it out that night as long as it makes sense to put it into the room. And if they get a laugh out of it, then that builds a little confidence. And then I'm like, oh, I'm for sure telling this one tomorrow because I know if I word it just like I did that, and I, you know, segue into it like that, I can get a laugh.

00:45:51
Speaker 6: From it, the Bobby cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:46:07
Speaker 2: I would again because I wasn't great at just writing NonStop material. Well mostly had other jobs too, right, so I couldn't just focus on material. I wouldn't want to be to record in my show. So I did no phones because it was mostly because of my insecurity. I didn't want something up that wasn't good because I wasn't good enough to have up stuff that wasn't good. And do you have any issue with phones at your shows.

00:46:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we make an announcement. I don't want to do those yonder bags where people have to do it, because I know I hate that whenever I have to go to a show like that. But we make an announcement from the jump, they still do it. And unfortunately, several months ago, one of my biggest jokes that I had written like it was one of those jokes where like the entire set is written around that joke, and she posted it on TikTok and it got several hundred thousand views within the first day, and luck I was able to message her and I said, hey, can you please take this down? Like, I appreciate the support and it means so much to me, but I have to tell this same joke for twenty more shows and I don't want to have to rework that. So she took it down immediately. The very next weekend, I go out again. It only had two hundred thousand views, but that's still two hundred thousand people, and I go out. I'm starting to set the joke up. I have a brief pause before I say the punchline, and then somebody yells the punchline and I was like, oh my gosh, So I had to rewrite that entire bit. And now if somebody has their phone up, I'll just be like, hey, baby, can we turn that phone down because I got to tell this joke twenty more times, you know, and then everybody puts their phone down.

00:47:48
Speaker 2: There was a moment that we would say at the end, We'll let everybody get their phone because everybody just wants to also document the experience, right, Like I'm here at the show, and we'd be like, Okay, in the last five minutes, I'm gonna let everybody pull their phones and you can do whatever you want. But yeah, I just didn't want my mid material because that's what it was very mid getting out, because it's all I had, right, And so I think that's that's really hard for a comic now, because you can't do those jokes over and over again, right unless it's like a really famous famous joke like the hot pocket jokes and gaff again where people demand that joke, right, you really can't do it. Yeah, have you whenever you're done, are you just trash? Are you putting the whole thing out? Then you're gonna have to rewrite a new hour.

00:48:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to rewrite for next year, but I don't think I'm gonna package it as a special Instead.

00:48:35
Speaker 4: The formula that works for me is.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: Social clips, so I'll just dice up each each joke into a social clip. But this past weekend I had somebody film I sing two songs, two original songs in my set, and the sound guy, bless his heart, I don't think this was intentional at all, but he muted I sing to backtracks, so you get lost in the sauce if you can't hear those backtracks, and he muted my wedges completely, both the tracks and my voice. And I'm trying to stay one beat ahead of the house music that I can hear, and he did it for both songs, and there was like fifteen cameras up and the whole time I'm singing, I'm like, this is where they post it, and everything goes to hell, like I'm having that internal dialogue. So as soon as I finished the song, I was like, I am so sorry about that.

00:49:30
Speaker 4: Guys.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: That's what happens when you can't hear yourself singing. Just to let them know, promise I'm not that bad, you know, what.

00:49:37
Speaker 3: Probably they didn't even notice.

00:49:39
Speaker 4: Maybe not.

00:49:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I've noticed the times where I felt like it was a bad show.

00:49:42
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be that, it could be a bad anything.

00:49:45
Speaker 2: That nobody else really thought that nearly to the level that I did, because I'm inside of it, right, And I think that has been the one thing throughout my career that I think that has made me because I, again, I was very delusional at the start. There were no arts where I came from small town in Arkansas. You didn't there weren't arts, right, You again, were an athlete and I was only an okay athlete, So I didn't get that. Luckily I was smart, but that wasn't celebrated. It just kind of got me out of there.

00:50:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:50:10
Speaker 2: But I would notice that when I would fail or i would bomb, or I would miss, or i'd have a show that didn't work out, that nobody cared.

00:50:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so there was freedom in that.

00:50:21
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that at the beginning. I struggle with that because I'm like, I did not deliver that joke or that that twenty minute bit the way that I usually do. And then you know, I'm having that internal dialogue. And then a friend of mine comes to the green room and says, oh my god, that joke you did tonight about X, Y and Z, which is the one I was struggling with, dude freaking funny, and I'm like, Okay, I gotta have I gotta have a little bit longer of a leash for myself and know that everything's good.

00:50:47
Speaker 2: Who are your friends like your known friends? You have country music friends?

00:50:52
Speaker 1: I have, Yes, I have friends in country music, But I would say, like a lot of my friends, like my rider Diyes, aren't not musical artists.

00:51:02
Speaker 3: But who are your famous friends my famous friends?

00:51:05
Speaker 1: I would say Ella Langley, Laney Wilson, Briley, and Marcus King. Ashley Cook because she has to be my friend cause I'm dating her sister. Now. Every time I've been around Jelly and Bunny, they're they act like they've known me for twenty years and I've probably only met them seven or eight times.

00:51:26
Speaker 3: But he's your oldest famous friend.

00:51:28
Speaker 4: My oldest famous friend that they.

00:51:30
Speaker 3: Probably weren't even famous when you became friends with them.

00:51:32
Speaker 1: Laney, Yeah, Laney, Laney, I don't know if you could have probably asked one hundred people in this town, Hey, do you know Lanny Wilson, and maybe fifteen of them would have been like, I've heard that name. I met her on a bar at Winters and Losers several years ago and she had her hair on top of her head in a messy bun, no makeup on, and I walked up to her and I was like.

00:51:57
Speaker 4: Hey, I'm Denay.

00:51:58
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm Laney Wilson. And I was like, I feel like I've heard your name. She's like, yeah, you probably have. I've written some songs. And then all of a sudden, her boyfriend comes around the corner and I go Devlin and he goes Denay, and I was like, what are you doing here? He's asked my girlfriend Laney, and I say, oh, I just met her. Come and find out. Me and Devlin went to the same high school together in Nowhere, Alabama. And so yeah, Lane and Laney, I'm telling you I was just talking about this. Lane is literally the sweetest human being of anybody I know. Like, I don't think she knows, like when she's in a social interaction, I don't think she knows that people are literally ooing and awing over being in the same room as her, because she just feels so down to earth and is the same girl I know today, is the same girl I met at Winters and Losers.

00:52:50
Speaker 3: How did you get to know? Ella Langley?

00:52:52
Speaker 1: Ellen and I met at the People's Choice Awards and we just hit it off. We're just two peas in a pod. She's, you know, also from Alabama and got a funny sense of humor. And so she turned around. She was sitting in the pew in front of me, and she turned around and she was like, I know you, and I was like, I know you. And She's like, you know what we need to do. We need to get together and do some dumb shit. And I said, hell, yeah we do. And so me and her have just been really good friends ever since then and filmed some dumb shit together for sure. And yeah, she's a good egg. She's I say it on camera too. Ella's crazy. She knows she is, and I'm crazy and I know I am, and that's why we're good friends.

00:53:34
Speaker 3: Why did you move here?

00:53:37
Speaker 1: I moved here because property taxes were too high in Austin. Got that, yeah, And I wanted to be closer to my dad. My dad's two and a half hours away.

00:53:44
Speaker 3: Were you living in Austin? Yeah, so was I.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, not at the same time. I mean we both came from there and property taxes were too high.

00:53:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, two point nine nine percent. I was paying twelve hundred dollars a month on a four hundred thousand dollars house. So if I even had that house completely paid off, which I didn't, I was still paying a mortgage on a high else. Yeah.

00:54:00
Speaker 2: No, property tax is always just a weird thing in general, like you continue to pay on something you already own, especially when you get old, Like there should be a cutoff because it sucks that old people have to pay taxes if they're retired and they don't have money coming in.

00:54:13
Speaker 1: Well, my grandmother gets that in Alabama. I don't know if it's just Alabama, so what is it. So she's completely property tax free. However, her property tax a year is I think six hundred dollars, So I don't know if they're doing that in Austin or not. But yeah, it was just too expensive to live there, which sounds funny because now I live in Nashville and it's pretty darn expensive too, but in better ways.

00:54:33
Speaker 2: Why but why now you can have moved anywhere, you can move to La can moved to New York.

00:54:37
Speaker 3: You could have moved.

00:54:39
Speaker 1: I lived out in California for two years, and I'm just so southern. I can talk to anybody, and I crave that when the waitress sits your coffee down, I'm annoying.

00:54:52
Speaker 4: I won't.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: I want to hear about her grandkids. Like I just I get a lot of fulfillment from small talk and human connectivity, and so I had a hard time with that out in California. Austin was a very friendly place, but I also really wanted to be closer to my dad. So it was nice that I could live in a really cool urban city with a lot of things happening, even though I wasn't doing anything in the entertainment business, but also scooted down to see him if I needed to.

00:55:19
Speaker 2: It's got a few minutes left. But do you it's still weird to me that I make a lot of money doing something that's like with my brain. Yeah, because nobody did stuff with the brain where I come from.

00:55:30
Speaker 3: Worked at the mill you worked. Is that still weird for you?

00:55:33
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:55:33
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah?

00:55:34
Speaker 1: Because my dad, he's a blue collar construction guy. He doesn't make money if it rains, you know, he makes money by having a shovel in his hand and his body's not aching when he crawls on the bed that night. That's a bad sign because he didn't put any money in the bank. And so for me, it's very weird to know that I'm being able to make money without busting my butt out in ninety degree with they're in Alabama. So I'm very self aware of that, and I'm like over the moon that I have the opportunity to do something I love that happens to not be ball busting and allows me ball busting in a different way but not physically.

00:56:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good in a different way. Yeah, it's hard to explain the different way though. I don't feel like I can complain about my job.

00:56:24
Speaker 3: To people that grew up like I did.

00:56:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think the complaint is so different, and I've done both, so I understand the complaints to both, and so yeah, unless it's somebody that I know can understand, like the mental grind, it's like not even worth it because I would be like.

00:56:42
Speaker 3: Shut up, why are you whining.

00:56:43
Speaker 2: You're whining because your little brain hurts because you can't think of something funny. I know, I know it's such a weak I would just.

00:56:48
Speaker 3: Be like, I'll be shut up.

00:56:50
Speaker 2: Why are you You don't you come up with jokes or things to talk about?

00:56:53
Speaker 3: That's not real, I know.

00:56:54
Speaker 1: And I find myself when I when I am having a hard day, like an anxious day, and I'm talking my dad about it, I'm like, I don't really want to be talking to him about this right now, because his hard day looks a lot different than mine. They're both hard but in their different ways, and so I try to have self awareness of that.

00:57:12
Speaker 2: What's your most recent like pinch me moment? We were like, Wow, this is so cool, man.

00:57:21
Speaker 1: I would say the Grand Ole Opry debut was pretty pretty on up there. I had a custom suit made that was read in honor of one of my favorite Southern comics, Jerry Klower, because he always performed there in a red suit.

00:57:35
Speaker 4: And I was like, this is really crazy.

00:57:36
Speaker 1: I've seen a million clips of Jerry Klower in a red suit at the Grand Ole Opry. And when they called my name out and my dad was on the front row, I was like, holy cow, how the hell did we end up here?

00:57:51
Speaker 3: What's crazy about you? Saying that?

00:57:52
Speaker 2: The first time I ever played the Opry. I told the Jerry Klower joke on purpose, Like I said it, I said, my grandma, who's I used to watch the opry with. Yeah, it was such a Jerry Clower fan. It's why I even know what the opry is, right, And so I told comics don't cover jokes. But I said, and I said that, I said, but I'm gonna tell a Jerry Clower joke because the only reason I'm here is because of my grandma. But that Jerry Klower was also like a part of what you saw the grand Ole Oprty to be because of your dad. That's pretty wild because that's what I knew that the grand Ole Opry from was Jerry Klower and then all the music associated with it as well. But it was always the comedy and who like, yeah up on stage, Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

00:58:29
Speaker 4: Yeah that that.

00:58:30
Speaker 1: And so I'm watching my dad watch me with this sparkle in his eyes of like, holy cow.

00:58:38
Speaker 4: I literally played her.

00:58:39
Speaker 1: So many Jerry Klower tapes and now I've influenced her enough to love that style of comedy that now she's getting to do that. That was having my dad front row, which by the way, was not a comp ticket. They were gonna the comp ticket, she know, or several rows back. My dad was so tickled Bink he bought an eight hundred dollars scalp ticket for the grand Ola free.

00:59:00
Speaker 4: I was like that, you didn't have to do that.

00:59:02
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:59:17
Speaker 3: Final question.

00:59:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a YouTube channel. You have to make content constantly.

00:59:23
Speaker 1: YouTube is the thing I hate the most, so I've kind of taken a break from YouTube. I do mostly short form now. As you know, long form is an animal. It's an animal, so.

00:59:37
Speaker 2: In every way, make like that, conceiving the idea, shooting it, editing it, editing is just as hard getting the timing right as it is actually doing it.

00:59:47
Speaker 4: Yep.

00:59:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was watching some of your videos and not the last couple weeks, but like when you were like combining all the foods, and it's.

00:59:53
Speaker 3: Just it's a it's a hustle.

00:59:55
Speaker 1: It is such a hustle. And I've also found that I just don't consume a lot of YouTube. I consume a lot of short form, and I think my brain just knows how that looks. And I felt like I was trying to find a needle in a haystack on YouTube, and I was trying to force myself to watch YouTube, but I never could get through a full video because I don't consume it.

01:00:17
Speaker 4: So I was like, you know what, let's just stick to what we know.

01:00:19
Speaker 1: Maybe if my agent's watching this because he really wants me to get on YouTube, maybe I'll circle the wagons back.

01:00:26
Speaker 4: But for now, I just love short form so much.

01:00:28
Speaker 3: Do you want to act?

01:00:29
Speaker 1: Yes, yep, No, that is literally I would give up everything, like literally everything. I'd give up my entire bank account, I'd give up every social media platform I have. I would give up stand up comedy if it led me to comedic TV and film roles, because that is literally the thing I have dreamed about the most. Don't get me wrong, I love stand up comedy. I'm addicted to it like I need it. But I've dreamed about being a comedic actor like Lucille Ball, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams playing characters in the same movie you're playing yourself like that has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.

01:01:12
Speaker 3: How are you trying to get there?

01:01:14
Speaker 1: Well, I have a self tape tonight. So yeah, so a lot of self taping and a lot of writing. I'm writing like a mad woman right now for TV and film because there's a lot of connections I've built over the last several years in writers in LA that initially have reached out to me for writing and not acting. But I'm finding a way to put myself in those groups.

01:01:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that.

01:01:38
Speaker 2: It's all the ways are hard, but the easiest way to be involved in something is to create it yourself exactly.

01:01:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's what I'm doing.

01:01:45
Speaker 1: I'm like, if nobody's gonna call, I'll create something where they.

01:01:48
Speaker 4: Have to call.

01:01:50
Speaker 2: Before you came in, we were talking about the tour, but just a reminder, we'll put it in the notes the first time tour till after Thanksgiving.

01:01:56
Speaker 3: Then said, then you're done.

01:01:57
Speaker 4: Yep.

01:01:58
Speaker 2: Then the clips come out, and the clips come out. Follow Dnay and go to Denae Hayes dot com. This has been awesome, ib me, thank you so much. Yeah, it's it's I've spent time with you as a human being. But it's sometimes whenever people are just funny online, sometimes you don't get to know them as a human because you just can like you want views, I want views. And if I'm sitting here just talking about something people aren't interested in or that they don't come to me for, They're not gonna watch it, right, So I like to sit with people who are just known as being like super funny or and just talking. And this has been super cool for me.

01:02:27
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bobby, me say, this has been a highlight of my life. Month no life, life, Yeah, my life.

01:02:31
Speaker 3: I think that I'll go.

01:02:32
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, yeah, sorry not no not month yeah.

01:02:34
Speaker 3: Life, yeah for sure and many more lives. Uh there she has.

01:02:37
Speaker 5: Denay Hayes, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.