Social media comedian Druski is getting candid with his fans and followers in an all-new interview and pulling back the curtain on some unfortunate memories from his childhood. But something good often comes out of the bad. He’s also sharing how his personal adversities led the way to the career he has now.
As you well know by now, Druski has been making folks laugh on the internet for years now, thanks in large part to his comedic skits, which regularly rack up millions of views. But now, in a conversation with Steven Bartlett in the latest episode of his “Diary of a CEO” podcast, the funny man revealed that he first learned how to use comedy as a coping mechanism to help him get through the “trauma” he and his brother endured as kids.
Related: BET AWARDS: Druski’s Best Skits, Ranked by Viral Views
Explaining how his father worked as an airline pilot for United Airlines while his mom worked for the CDC, Druski shared how his father’s disciplinarian ways bordered on abusive, though he didn’t immediately recognize it as so. As a result, he sought to bring some levity to his family by cracking jokes and trying to find the funny out of a bad situation.
“My comedy definitely came from a healing—wanting to make our situation better at home. We don’t come from a broke home; we were a broken home, but we weren’t a broke home,” he said.
He later added: “What I wanted to do, and my personality as a kid, was always to make the family smile. No matter all the stuff we were going through, the teachings being too far sometimes, and maybe this ass whoopin’ was too much…I feel like my comedy comes from that place of—I never tend to punch down. I like to find the funny but also the good side of funny and not look at the negative for my type of comedy. I can find a negative situation and bring the funny out of it for both sides, me and the other person.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Druski revealed that the negative experiences he and his brother endured as kids led to his brother developing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder during puberty. He shared that while he turned to comedy, his brother wasn’t able to find the outlet that he needed in order to process all that they went through.
Druski later divulged that the abuse from his father wasn’t just limited to him and his brother, but that he also witnessed his mother get choked and shoved around by their father, too. This led him to always look for an opportunity to “raise” the vibe in the household and eventually decide to do the same thing for others on a larger scale.
“I do know that my comedy comes from that comforting type of space. I can read a room and sense any type of danger. I can read a room and sense any type of happiness, sadness, anything. In any situation,” he explained. “Somebody could be mentally ill, somebody could be physically hurt, somebody could be anything. And I always have been a good judge of character as well. So I feel like that it’s something that has helped me as well.”
Watch Druski’s full interview below.
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