![]() What’s saddest about this part of her story is how little the authorities cared about a teenage black girl in Atlanta. So Williams did - until putting it in her memoir.Īnd then in walked Darrell Laye, the older man who would father her first two children. He told her to keep it to themselves or they’d be beaten. The girls were 7 and 9.īefore long, the girls had been sexually abused by a neighborhood man. “Shake that ass,” they would shout at Williams and her older sister. Patricia, nicknamed “Rabbit,” slept on the floor, survived on ketchup sandwiches and, at Mildred’s direction, danced for the drunks that patronized that living room. Her grandfather sold moonshine in a “liquor house,” otherwise known as their living room. Her mother, Mildred, was an abusive drunk who would be dead by 40. She was born Patricia Williams on April 2, 1972. The kind of laughter that could be crying.” “To be able to listen to that and feel like you can laugh about that is sort of elevating and transcendent. “And having that sense of humor saved her life to a certain degree,” says Maron. to Barack Obama, because her comedy is exactly the kind he loves: visceral, honest and unafraid. Maron said he put Williams on “WTF,” the popular podcast that has featured a range of personalities that includes Louis C.K. Her voice was the voice of most black women that I knew, and yet she had overcome so many obstacles and was able to laugh about it and be able to make something good out of her life. “I saw her stand-up act, and I was in tears,” says Daniels. Her niece, a drug addict, has disappeared.Īll of this, the past and the present, is fair game for the life that unfolds on stage, where Williams turns unbearable tales of woe into a routine that leaves you laughing so hard you almost wonder how. Williams and Garrett, a machinist, have two children of their own, Garrianna, 19, and Garrett Jr., 17, plus full custody of her niece’s four kids, who range from 3 to 8. Williams’s act has helped her build a 5,500-square-foot home in a subdivision in Indianapolis, and she needs all four bathrooms. Comedy clubs don’t require criminal background checks. Her record left her unable to hold a job managing a gas station. Daniels, who directed “Precious,” “The Butler” and co-created “Empire,” calls Williams “the black Roseanne.”įor Williams, 25 years removed from Fulton County Jail, comedy isn’t just therapy. At the same time, Williams is working withdirector Lee Daniels on a sitcom about her life for Fox, which she’ll star in. Pat,” is drawing notice for its unforgiving and darkly hilarious portrait of her rise from the grimmest of circumstances. She has done NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” appeared on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, and her new memoir, “Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Williams’s career is anything but a secret. Pat is done, keeping to her promise to “make this quick. They’re her “Medicaid kids,” whom she likes more, “because they understand the struggle.”Īfter about 17 minutes, Ms. The older ones came when she was single, poor and not even in high school. The younger ones are her “Blue Cross/Blue Shield kids,” whom she had with her husband, Garrett. Williams, who is 45, talks about her two sets of children. Then she dips into the personal material that is her trademark. “Black people felt the same way when Flavor Flav was on TV.” She offers an unprintable burst about body hair that references her recent 100-pound weight loss. “I know how you feel,” she mock consoles. Warning: This podcast contains explicit language.įirst, she targets a guy staring blankly from in front as a Trump supporter with serious voter’s remorse. The headliner, a guy you’ve never heard of, has the club a quarter filled and of that quarter, a long table’s packed with chatty, older ladies clinking daiquiris for somebody’s birthday. So Patricia Williams, whose drug-dealing past is as much a part of her act as her current status as a sharp-tongued suburban mom, hops into her Buick for a Friday night tuneup at Morty’s Comedy Joint. INDIANAPOLIS - The pulled pork is too dry, the kids are everywhere, and she hasn’t done a set in weeks. Look for the “play” button below or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. UPDATED from August 2017: You can now hear Geoff Edgers’s interviews with Ms. She is raising six kids and her message to them is "there's no such thing as you can't." (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post) ![]() Pat," is about to get her big break with a new show on Fox. After a life of struggling with addiction in her family, comedian Patricia Williams, known as "Ms.
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