SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Comedian Michelle Buteau didn't initially feel like stand-up was for her because she's openly happy. She loves her work, her family, and she feels very fortunate to perform for a living. Michelle Buteau's new Netflix special is "A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall." She joined my colleague Rachel Martin for a game of Wild Card, where guests choose questions to answer from a deck of cards. Here's Rachel.
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RACHEL MARTIN: One, two or three.
MICHELLE BUTEAU: OK, I'm going to go for three.
MARTIN: Three.
BUTEAU: It's a lucky number.
MARTIN: What's a piece of advice you were smart to ignore?
BUTEAU: Oh, my God, lose weight. Shut up. People that tell you to lose weight are never a doctor. They never look happy. Like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? Lose weight. People won't like you, love you, or you can get a job. Shut up. Not only am I going to keep my weight, I might gain some weight, OK? I'm going to gain some weight, and I'm going to create jobs. And I'm not going to give you one of them. I'm just going to show you what it looks like to love my body, my double chin, my extra rolls, OK?
MARTIN: Did somebody say...
BUTEAU: My buckets of thighs, sauce on the side, you can't afford it. So sorry.
MARTIN: People actually said the words...
BUTEAU: Is it the caffeine?
MARTIN: I don't know. I'm into it. I'm here for the ride, girl.
BUTEAU: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Someone said to you the words - 'cause there's lots of ways to put that forward, you know, passive, like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But did someone say the words to you - you will be more successful if you lose weight?
BUTEAU: Not only have people said those words to me...
MARTIN: Wow.
BUTEAU: ...Let's say, family members at dinner parties - don't eat that. You're going to get fat, and no one's going to marry you. College professor - when I told him I wanted to be a journalist, an entertainment reporter, he said, you're just simply too fat to be on camera. Casting directors, quite honestly, culture and society...
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BUTEAU: ...'Cause if I don't see myself, then you're saying that something's wrong with me. And that's why diversity matters is not just a hashtag. If you see it, you believe you can actually be it because you're like, oh, there it is, and here I am. But if it's never there, then how do you know that you can even knock on the door to say, I'm here? So that's why it matters.
MARTIN: So was there a moment when you made the choice to be like, I'm not going to listen to this? - 'cause that's hard.
BUTEAU: My wedding - because all my friends are like, you got to diet. You got to exercise, and you got to diet. That's what you do. And I was like, why? And they're like, you just got to do it. And I did it, and I lost a lot of weight. And I was like, this doesn't feel good, and I miss turkey bacon. And my dress was too big and kept falling off of me during my father-daughter dance and my - and all the dancing. And then I literally had, like, some tequila and a potato and blacked out for the rest of my wedding. And I'm like, why had I been pregaming?
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BUTEAU: I already found a man that's going to love me, no matter what. What am I doing? And that's when I was just like, no, I'm not listening to you guys anymore.
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MARTIN: Round two, three new cards - one, two or three.
BUTEAU: All right, I'm going to go one this time.
MARTIN: What's the biggest risk you've ever taken?
BUTEAU: Definitely getting married.
MARTIN: Whoa.
BUTEAU: That's crazy. That's insane. I don't...
MARTIN: Just the whole thing of it, yeah.
BUTEAU: Yes. Like, I don't know you. You don't know me.
MARTIN: But more than having a baby?
BUTEAU: Well, that was really crazy, too, because we did IVF for five years. And I had a lot of losses, and then we had to go down the surrogacy route.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BUTEAU: And so, like, that was absolutely crazy. But if I have to think about, like, the person, my partner that I'm, like, on this journey with where, like, anything can happen in life and to, like, have a person to do that with is special. And so just to - I met my husband out of a one-night stand - to be like, I don't know, you seem pretty great. Like, you know, I just kind of followed my instinct, and I was like, I don't really know you. The only thing I know is that I want to keep seeing you tomorrow and tomorrow. And he was in Amsterdam. I was in New York. We had no money. We would, like, get miles or, like, GoFundMes and, like, try to see each other. And I was like, I think I want my face to be in your face for a very long time. And that's all I knew.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BUTEAU: And there was, like, no red flags for me to be like, mm-mm (ph), you know? So...
MARTIN: If there were no red flags, what felt risky about it?
BUTEAU: Because what if there is a red flag later?
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah.
BUTEAU: What if the other - you're waiting for the other shoe to drop when you're in a relationship. Sometimes I look at my husband, and I'm like, this is really crazy. I can't believe we're still doing this. It's been 16 years. I'm like, can you believe it? You know, it's crazy.
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MARTIN: We're going to round three. This is the last round. All right, here we go. Three more cards - one, two, three.
BUTEAU: Ooh. No. 2.
MARTIN: What's a place you consider sacred?
BUTEAU: Oh my goodness. I mean, what do you - like, my home, my home. Yeah.
MARTIN: Can you tell me about your house? Like, do you have a particular ritual with your family that keeps it feeling...
BUTEAU: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Sacred?
BUTEAU: I mean, you know, I really pride myself on being the fun house, which is great 'cause I grew up in a very Caribbean household where it's, like, a lot of parties and families and dancing, and so I love that. And so we make it a point to have people over, like, once a month or something - and a lot of people, you know, like, 40 to 80 people...
MARTIN: What?
BUTEAU: ...'Cause, you know - yeah, we have a beautiful community.
MARTIN: Yeah.
BUTEAU: And now people are sort of, like, you know, in relationships and have kids and dogs. And so we - you know, my husband and I, we're sort of like community organizers, and so we have parties. But, you know, it's also nice to have, like, a friend over for dinner once in a while, but for the most part, like, we have dinner together every night as a family.
MARTIN: That alone is a big deal.
BUTEAU: Yeah. We work really hard for all those plates to make it to the table.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BUTEAU: If it's for seven minutes or 30 minutes, we're doing it, you know? And it isn't always, like, romantic. We don't go around the table and be like, what was your thorn and your...
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BUTEAU: Like, we don't do all that. You know, it's just like, can you just eat your broccoli and tell me what happened at the playground?
MARTIN: Dude, if a kid eats their broccoli, I think that is sacred. I think that's a sacred act.
BUTEAU: Same.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
BUTEAU: Same. Exactly. Exactly.
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MARTIN: Michelle Buteau - her new Netflix comedy special is called "A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall." Michelle, thank you, thank you, thank you.
BUTEAU: Thank you.
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