It Takes a Lot to Embarrass Hannah Berner

It’s hard to be online and not have heard of Hannah Berner.

The 33-year-old, who got her start on Bravo’s Summer House, has been busier than most can even imagine. She and her former reality TV co-star Paige DeSorbo have created their own podcasting juggernaut with their weekly show Giggly Squad. Berner also hosts a podcast, Berner Phone, with her husband, Des Bishop.

Berner quickly set her sights on a passion of hers — stand-up comedy. Over the last year, she toured as a stand-up, eventually releasing an hour-long Netflix special, We Ride at Dawn, a certified top 10 hit on the platform, and played over 40 Giggly Squad live show dates.

“I’ve lived so many different lives and people know me from so many things,” Berner tells The Hollywood Reporter on a phone call in late March. “I kind of love not being put in a box.”

In all of their spare time, the comedian and her co-host released their first book last month, How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously, an endeavor that Berner and DeSorbo saw as simply a new format for their ever-present goal of reaching people and being themselves.

Below, Berner speaks with THR about becoming a grandma on tour, what it means to be a woman in a male-centered space, how she’s learning to log off and more.

What made you and Paige want to release your new book, How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously?

I’m going to be honest with you, we did not want to do a book. It was a bitch. Someone approached us and we were like, what? Because we love making people laugh, and I’ve done it in many forms on stage [and] podcasting, but never a book. We thought this is just a different medium for us to reach people and be ourselves. We kind of took it on as a challenge, and then over the last few years, even though there’s been so many other crazy things going on, the book kept being written. No ghostwriters involved. This is raw. Me and Paige just out here, figuring it out on the page, no pun intended. I think we ended up having this kind of excitement about having this physical product that also makes people laugh, which we’ve never done before. We were beyond proud and had no idea we’d enjoy the process so much and be so excited for people to read it. I feel like it started with fear and now we’re kind of just proud, and happy and excited to see the reactions.

Did you find you realized anything about yourself when writing the book?

At first, I was like, I’m on a tour, I’m doing podcasts, I’m creating my own content. I don’t know if I have time to write a book. I was actually talking to my husband and he was like, “This is an incredible writing exercise that also will help you do stand up.” Once I heard this can help me with my stand-up… Also, I was more of a nerd in school, where my parents were all teachers. I had a lot of pressure to get straight A’s. Paige was not the same way. Paige loves journaling for her mental health. I know how to write well, and she was like, “I think this is therapeutic to write down our thoughts,” so it actually became very therapeutic too. We have a combination of really vulnerable stories that also we were able to put details that you can’t necessarily get into an interview or nuance that you can’t get in a clip that we were able to have in this book. But also just really funny chapters where I could put a lot of my jokes together on one page. I grew up reading Chelsea Handler’s books and Tina Fey. I love all these just female comedians, so I kind of try to channel them in writing the book.

You’ve had a really busy year in terms of touring as a standup and with the podcast. What are you like on tour when you’re not performing? How do you get through those days?

I definitely think I’m an introvert[ed], extrovert. I forget the order of it all, but when I’m on stage, I’m giving my blood, sweat and tears. When I’m off-stage, I can be a bit of a hermit. I’m not going to cities and being like, let’s just go to the mall and see what happens during the day. Or let’s do a tourist attraction. I love sleep. I’m catching up on sleep. I don’t party. I take it super seriously where I’m like, I need to be hydrated. I’m taking my vitamin C. I’m trying to do some stretches so my lower back doesn’t hurt. I think early on, a lot of people at my shows they’d want to give me weed or party afterwards.

Now, I think people understand [that] I want to make people laugh and for me to survive the longevity of being a standup, I am pretty boring… I’m a grandma who just wants to talk and make people laugh. I’m very boring on tour. Paige and I on our last Giggly Squad tour challenged ourselves. We did stuff in some cities together, but when I’m alone doing stand-up… I’ll also just show up places alone. They’ll be like, “Do you not have an entourage?” I’m like, “Nope, just me and the mic. Let’s do this.” I think being a tennis player, I am pretty much the same as when I was younger with tennis. I get on a plane, I show up to the tournament, I do my best and then I try to drink Gatorade and go to sleep. Pretty much the same girl as I was in the past.

What do you hope for the future of touring with the podcast?

The fun thing with Giggly Squad is we never went into it as a business or something. It was never the plan to do any of this, it was more just each day we’re like, would this be fun? Would this be fun? This podcast tour, I think we did something over 55 shows or something and it was so fun that, I mean, yeah, we have a lot of stories and crazy stuff that happened throughout and panic attacks, but the second we finished was like, when are we doing it again?

Honestly, performing with my best friend… Sometimes podcasting is lonely. You forget that people listen. When you go to a show and you see people wearing merch and people yelling inside jokes at you, you’re just like, this is a cool community. I’m biased, but I feel like the listeners of Giggly Squad are all smart, hot, successful women and gays. Now that the Giggly Squad tour ended, I’m now working on my stand-up hour. It’s really coming together and in the fall, I’m going to go on a stand-up tour and then maybe go back into Giggly Squad. I love performing and it’s finding different ways to make it work. We love the tour, and we love complaining about tour also.

That’s the fun of getting to do something; getting to complain about it as well.

We were on Southwest, they woke us up in the middle of the flight to announce someone’s birthday, and I was like, “This should be illegal.”

You and Paige were correspondents for the Vanity Fair Oscars red carpet. What do you feel you learned from that, and if it’s something you think you would do again?

Oh my god, it was such an incredible experience. I’m so happy that they had us, and I definitely think I learned a ton and I’m overall just grateful to have been there.

What does it mean to you to be a girl’s girl or to be in this space, especially in stand-up, as it is still pretty male-centric? What does it mean to be getting into these spaces that men had previously been taking up all the air of and making a space for yourself?

I always say there’s not more female comics because women are less funny. I would argue that women are naturally observant and hilarious and they love to gossip and there’s so many things that would make them incredible stand-ups. But the structure of stand-ups, and especially the old-school way of becoming a stand-up, is extremely uncomfortable to be a woman. Going to bars late at night, the alcohol, being the only girl in the room. I think a lot of girls do it, and they’re really funny, but then they think, this doesn’t feel good and I don’t feel that safe, and maybe this isn’t what I’m meant to do. I definitely have dealt with a lot of those burdens, and I definitely feel like it’s my purpose to when I’m uncomfortable to push through because it’s all I want to do is break those barriers. I know it’s going to get easier and easier for women because I already had women pave the way for me. That’s why I’m extremely grateful for the internet, because I’ve been able to use it as my open mic in a safe space, just me ranting on TikTok, posting my clips to see what works.

I do think that as a woman, people don’t immediately want you to be funny, or want you to be confident or want you to be taking up space, and I’m OK with that. I think I can handle that, and that’s why I think I am in the right place, and I have really, really thick skin.

Do you find it odd to see yourself on TV during your stand-up special instead of reality TV?

The stand-up special is my therapy. Reality TV was one of the ways that I was put on, so I’m so grateful for it, but I can’t watch reality TV anymore. I do think reality TV, as I saw, that everyone is put into characters, and you’re very much put into a box. The rampant misogyny, it gave me this chip on my shoulder to be like, I want to be seen as me. When I say me, [I mean] all the sides of me, I want to put out the vulnerability, the mistakes I’ve made, the confidence I have, the anxiety I have. If I’m going to be judged, I want it to be judged based off at least a human rather than an archetype. I do think I always emphasize just how women are so multifaceted, and I try to in my comedy, say things that maybe women were afraid of or insecure about, so [they can say], “Hannah just said it, so it can’t be that bad.”

You seem to be someone who is constantly going. Are you able to disconnect at all from work or are you someone who kind of thrives on being busy?

Did you talk to my husband before this call?

[Laughs]

I see what you guys did here. I definitely am constantly running from my own thoughts. I don’t like to be still, I like to be thinking about stuff. I thrive on just having a list of to-dos and doing it, but I also will break down and have two days that I’m just lying on the couch watching random documentaries about things I never knew I could possibly be interested in. I definitely think burnout is the one thing I have to always be aware of. Thanks to my husband, who’s been in comedy for over 30 years, who has really been a guiding light in terms of learning to say no. You make mistakes, especially when you’re in the public eye and you’re exhausted, or you’re tired and you’re performing and you need to be top-notch all the time. He’s been really good at being like, “You need to take a break.”

Social media can make you feel like everyone’s always doing something and you’re always a little behind. I would argue that I’ve now been practicing having some separation from my phone. This isn’t a new thought, but I’ve recently actually tried it. Having space from my phone has been extremely mentally healthy for me, especially when you’re always doing stuff. It’s like you’re either online, on stage, and sometimes you just have to get away for a second. I haven’t read comments about myself for years now. I know that a lot of creatives read these kind of articles, and one of the best things I heard was, “Once comments start affecting your creativity, they win.” It’s really important to me to not let online comments affect me creating and me feeling confident in my creative process.