Viewers know writer, comedian and actress Heather McDonald for her quick wit and hilarious takes on pop culture on Chelsea Handler’s late-night talk show on E!, Chelsea Lately. But, it’s on the parody sitcom, After Lately, when she and the other stars of the talk show let their comedy chops really hang out with their hilarious “behind the scenes” antics.
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McDonald, 41, is an alum of L.A.’s improv comedy troupe, The Groundlings, which has been the training ground for many of the funniest people in Hollywood, including Kathy Griffin, Melissa McCarthy, and Conan O’Brien. Having opened for Handler in sold out performances all across the country, the USC grad also headlines at some of the most famous comedy clubs in the business.
With After Lately returning for its second season on Sunday at 11 p.m. on E!, McDonald gives The Hollywood Reporter’s readers an inside look at her life and personality with a celebrity guest blog. Here are five things you didn’t know about Heather McDonald.
1. I’m addicted to cracking my back. I’ll lie on a filthy carpet and beg a stranger to push on my back. I’m just like a heroine addict wrapping a rubber band around their arm waiting for the hit, but until I hear that audible pop it’s all I can think about. The first time I was professionally “cracked” was by this huge black male chiropractor and it was like someone took a piece of bubble packing wrap and twisted it 15 times. I’ll be honest, I’ve been chasing the dragon ever since.
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2. I listen to hip hop music in my car. I’m in my car two hours a day driving from my home to our offices at Chelsea Lately/After Lately and back and I listen to hip hop and rap music the whole way. I always loved it even before I worked with the Wayans Brothers on White Chicks. I’m a mother of three, but I’ve never played a Disney CD for my kids in my car – which explains why I got a call from my five-year-old son’s Catholic school explaining that Brandon was singing “Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some cushion in it” on the walk to mass.
3. I always fantasized about fainting but never have. I guess it’s the attention that faint victims have gotten throughout the history of soap operas that attracted me to it, but I always felt if I fainted at least once it would bring some richness to my life experience. I could tell people at cocktail parties, “I was so embarrassed when I looked up and saw all my coworkers looking down on me. I guess I had just forgotten to eat that day.”
4. My biggest fear is going to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I’m obsessed with 48 Hours Mystery especially if it’s about infidelity, murder, and disposing of a spouse’s dead body. If they are rich and attractive, I’m even more intrigued. So what if I woke up one morning, and my husband was dead, and somehow they spun it that I poisoned him, and I was convicted? At first it would be horrible – like going to public middle school – but then I’d soon learn to impersonate all the guards and win over the inmates and soon they’d be saying, “White bitch with the great hair is f-ing funny.”
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5. I learned how to pose at four. I get a lot crap from the people at Chelsea Lately and After Lately for the way I seem to pose exactly the same in every photo ever taken of me. Well, I learned from the best: My mother, former Badger Beauty from the University of Wisconsin. There is a picture of me at age four in white go-go boots, a red mini dress, and white felt cowboy hat with my hands on my hips, my right foot heel placed in the middle of my left foot, which is pointing at a 45 degree angle, and a huge smile on my face. And, I must say, it is still the best picture I’ve ever taken, stunning.
By Heather McDonald.
Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro
