🎧 Nikki Glaser’s Emmy Shock

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Nikki Glaser thought she understood what it meant to be a well-known and successful comedian. Then the bros got intimidated by her.

That’s just one of the many side effects of her massively viral moment on May’s roast of Tom Brady, which aired live on Netflix and introduced Glaser’s fearless comedic style to a whole new audience. “Many more men like me now,” Glaser tells me on this week’s Prestige Junkie podcast. “They’re kind of nervous around me, and I can’t really give them what they want in terms of what I did that night. Running into me is like running into a porn star. If you are thinking I’m gonna show up like that in a conversation and be glitzy and glamorous and buds with Gronk, that’s not what you’re gonna get when you meet me.”

Not even a week after the roast viewed ‘round the world, Glaser hit yet another career high: Her standup special Someday You’ll Die debuted May 11 and became the most-watched comedy special in the history of HBO and Max, with more than three million viewers since its debut. 

Tackling topics from her fear of motherhood to the extended gangbang joke that gives the special its title (yes, really!), Glaser is probably even more fearless than she was during the Brady roast, and is now a first-time Emmy nominee for the special. Though as she told me, she received the news about her nomination in what’s probably a very different way than her fellow nominees. 

“When I got a bunch of texts that said ‘Emmy!’, I thought I got a hosting gig for the Emmys,” she says, explaining that a potential hosting gig had been discussed at one point. “So when I found out I was nominated, not only was I so excited that I was nominated for an Emmy, but then this big job that I was going to have to say yes to was suddenly taken off the table. I was like, ‘Oh, I just get to go to the Emmys? This is good.’”

This week’s show also includes a conversation with my friend (and former podcast partner) David Canfield about the best of the year’s Oscar buzz thus far, including blockbusters giving us early looks like Gladiator 2 and indie hopefuls with slow-burn campaign success like Sing Sing. David has some great answers to the question I plan to ask many times this month, as fall festival season gears up: Why does awards season work like this?

We might not have all the answers, but this week’s episode is a pretty good place to start.