Jerrod Carmichael Knows His HBO Show “Doesn’t Make Him Look Good”

HBO

When I reach Jerrod Carmichael by phone on a Friday afternoon, he is reading the Bible. The comedian had been writing down a thought about what it means to be a good person, which led him to look up a verse from Galatians: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I was still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Carmichael reads the verse out loud to me, then wonders aloud, “Who am I trying to please? Who am I trying to win the approval of? I’m always trying to answer that question for myself.”

This is the main line of inquiry that seems to underscore Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show, the comedian’s bracingly intimate and often discomfiting HBO series, in which he arguably commits some cardinal sins, like adultery (he cheats on his boyfriend repeatedly), sloth (he fails to show up for a good friend’s wedding, seemingly just because he was feeling lazy), and greed (throughout, he seems incapable of doing things for other people that aren’t ultimately self-serving). As unflattering as it is, Carmichael puts it all on display. The impulse to confess is the beating heart of both Christianity and the modern-day internet; Carmichael crystallizes that instinct into its purest form to nauseating but compelling effect. The show’s eight episodes made me feel viscerally uncomfortable, more so than anything else I’ve ever watched on television. Yet I would also be lying if I said that I didn’t recognize the worst parts of myself in it, which was exactly Carmichael’s intent, he tells me. To quote from another Bible verse, the show is also daring those who are without sin to cast the first stone.

Despite the many stones that have been cast — the thinkpieces and the onslaught of hate tweets and Reddit threads — the comedian’s life right now isn’t that different from how it was before Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show started airing in March. Since his boyfriend is out of town at the time we speak, he has grown accustomed to staying up late, until just before sunrise, if not past that. In the mornings, he’ll get an espresso, a green tea, or both. He’ll open up a book — he just started Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson — then write and try to organize his thoughts. He likes to go on walks by the Hudson.

The main difference is that now Carmichael has “much more intense things to focus on,” namely his relationship to his family, and his relationship with the public, which have both been tested by the HBO show. Notably, over the course of our phone call, he rarely refers to himself as a comedian, opting for the label of artist; the two, of course, are not mutually exclusive, but the preference evinces a shift in how he understands and situates his own work.

Carmichael’s Emmy-winning 2022 stand-up special, Rothaniel, in which he came out as gay, already straddled the border between performance art and comedy, and Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show blurs those boundaries even further. He does not cite as inspiration any of the metatextual reality-comedy shows that are becoming somewhat of a subgenre unto themselves, like Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, which also generated its fair share of thinkpieces, or his good friend Bo Burnham’s Inside. Instead, Carmichael name-checks The Real Housewives, The Kardashians, and Portrait of Jason, an experimental 1967 documentary about the Black gay hustler and performer Jason Holliday.

“I’ve been feeling lately as though I’d like to be on the front lines of the artist’s liberation movement,” he tells me, “and I think the show is definitely a statement for the liberation of an artist to honestly explore complicated emotions, and to contend with them through art.”

Whether the show is an ethical endeavor is highly subjective, but Carmichael is more interested by his audience’s moral connections to the art they consume than he is in trying to portray himself as a good person. When I ask him if he thinks he is one, he responds, “I actually don’t know how to answer that question,” then adds, “The short answer is yes, but I’m working on it.”

Over the phone from his Manhattan apartment, Carmichael spoke with Them to discuss his relationship to his audience, his comments about Dave Chappelle’s transphobic jokes, and the potential pivot to OnlyFans he teased to Esquire.

How do you feel about the way that people are reacting to the show? You mentioned you haven’t been on Twitter or Reddit much, but it’s been pretty polarizing.

Well that, I’m thankful for. I’ve lived in that space my entire career, so that’s not new to me. I can’t think of a thing that I’ve made that hasn’t gotten a strong [reaction of] “What is he doing?” It’s funny because it’s not necessarily my intention. My intention is to be as honest as I can be in my work. But I think that that causes people to have very strong feelings, including the people in my life. They’re trying to make sense of it, and it changes week to week. It is very interesting. I’ve been joking with my friends that I do think that haters are some of my biggest supporters.

In terms of?

Just the people who claim to have strong negative feelings toward it, but consistently speak about it via tweets or podcasts. It’s interesting sometimes watching them contend with it.

They’re definitely keeping you in the conversation.

I mean, I appreciate that. I definitely don’t want to be the artist who is taking the easiest approach. The artist is now crowdsourcing, and I don’t think it has a positive impact on art.

Can you say more about that?

It’s difficult to create things in a vacuum. The audience now feels as though they are a part of the creation process, and so the comments and the thoughts, if you allow them to, mold and shape the art. That’s just the world now. It can make something good and interesting, but usually it just overwhelms the artist and lets in fear, which I know is anti-art. So what are you supposed to do? I’ve definitely sought validation from the internet, but also a platform isn’t a platform if everyone’s standing on it.

Have you received any feedback that’s made you be like, “Maybe points were made?”

I like to begin with, “Well, maybe this person is right,” even if it’s completely negative. I have to stay open. That is important. I like seeing how people feel and seeing if I agree with some of it or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, sometimes it’s a fair point, but I go, “Yeah, but let’s move beyond that.” One of my favorite responses earlier on in the show was when I saw someone on TikTok looking into the camera saying, “What Jerrod Carmichael needs to realize is that everything doesn’t need to be recorded.” And I was like, “But you do get the instinct, right? Seeking validation through recording something?” I hope that the irony wasn’t lost on her.

What do you think that people have misunderstood the most about the show?

I want to make it clear that the show is a deliberate piece. Some of the responses are like, “Oh, this doesn’t make him look good.” I go, “I know.” It’s not to celebrate the negative sides of myself; I’m actually actively trying to work through them and understand myself better. But the work is deliberate, and I think sometimes people watch it like I didn’t put it out.

Just judging from people’s reactions, it does seem like the biggest misunderstanding is that you’re trying to paint yourself as an empathetic character or make excuses for your actions. But as a viewer, I didn’t get that impression at all.

Yeah, I’m exploring my lack of empathy and how that’s dangerous. Not saying it’s good, but I’m saying that it exists in certain areas of my life, and the show is exploring those areas. I think that people are so used to the presentational version of truth that you see constantly in art and on the internet that if someone actually says something truthful and uncomfortable, they go, “Wait, then what is everything else?”

One tweet in particular stood out to me where someone was like, “He’s just putting people in intentionally uncomfortable situations in front of a camera and it feels manipulative.” And I was like, “Well, yeah, that’s also how actual reality TV works.”

Yeah. But also, what I would say to that person is that the uncomfortable situation was my life before those conversations. I’ve definitely used art as a form of therapy. And therapy isn’t where you go and present everything that’s been worked out; therapy is where you explore the things that you’re trying to fix in your life. It’s an unorthodox therapy, for sure. It’s actually, dare I say, insane.

I would agree with you.

Yeah, it’s insane. That’s why it’s a show.

I think a lot of the reception to your work stems from people having certain expectations of you in terms of representational politics, and I was curious about your thoughts on that.

I feel a sense of responsibility that I haven’t felt before in my work. Even with my last special, I felt a sense of responsibility to be honest and to tell the truth about myself as a person, because I think that’s what connects with people. I take a lot of responses to heart, but if a response to my work has “we” in it, like when someone’s speaking for all gay people or speaking for all Black people, I think that’s hilarious and delusional. But people do it all the time. They’re like, “We don’t feel this way.” And I’m like, “We? Did you check with all the gay people? What personal Gallup poll did you do?”

I am trying to need external validation less and less, but I just wanted to explore the reality of my life and what I was going through. In doing so, some of the responses I’ve read have been very inspiring. They’ve been messages of hope, they’ve been messages saying, “I am like this, or I recognized myself in you. I recognize parts of myself that I was unwilling to confront because you confronted it,” and that is very beautiful to me. I’m very, very thankful for that.

I don’t intend to showcase the picture-perfect gay experience, because I haven’t had that. If that is someone’s experience, they should show that, and the people that have had that will relate to that. But my experience has been a little rocky. A lot of it is self-induced turmoil, just dealing with a lot of shame and self-hate all these things that I’ve been having to work through, but I’m showcasing all of that, even the ugly parts.

You mentioned you feel a greater sense of responsibility now, and I wanted to say I really appreciated what you said about Dave Chappelle’s work—

I appreciate that. Listen, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m like, “I’m not talking about anybody else ever again in press,” because it’s a distraction from my work. I’m very proud of the things that I make. My only crusade is my personal quest to make things that I like and that hopefully resonate with people. And so I don’t want to be involved with anything else.

Well, you’re typically such an unapologetic person, as the show demonstrates, so I was just wondering why you felt the need to apologize to Chappelle when what you said was pretty fair.

Honestly, because I know him and I could have just had that conversation privately. A lot of the apology was even to myself for the distraction. I don’t need it. I don’t even want it now, I don’t want it in the interview. I think that I can do more good by focusing on my own work and being the person that I want to see in the world.

I was just curious about how that came into play with your ideas about truth and that sense of responsibility that you mentioned.

Listen, in the things that I make, I try to talk about the thing that I am an expert in, and that’s my own life. And I use the term “expert” loosely because as you can see, I’m still figuring things out, so I wouldn’t even call myself an expert of my own life. But it’s the thing that I have ownership over, and that’s what I want to do.

Fair enough. What’s coming next for you after the show is done airing?

I don’t know. [laughs]

In the first episode of his new series, *Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,* the comedian documented the whole awkward process.

Is an OnlyFans still on the table?

My boyfriend laughed at me and said, “Oh, you just want to be ‘Mr. Ooh, I Have Sex!’ Good for you!” I wanted to do it mostly for the freedom of putting out something that I would be afraid to have out there. That’s the reason to do anything.

Are you afraid of the reaction to the ending of the show?

I was more afraid to have these conversations with my mother [about homophobia.] That remains true. The content and themes of the show cause me more fear and anxiety and turmoil than the response to it. The hard part is over.

Still, I do want people to walk away with a better understanding of me. And for those that it can help, or for those that are afraid of having these conversations in their own lives, I hope that it inspires. I do really hope that.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

New episodes of Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show air Fridays on HBO and stream on Max.

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Originally Appeared on them.