The story teller in Samantha Bee
You probably have watched comedian Samantha Bee as a correspondent on “The Daily Show” for several years now, but did you know that she was an only child of divorced parents? That she’s a Canadian with two children and another on the way? That she was introduced to sex at the tender age of 7? Oh, and she once worked in a penis clinic too.
That unorthodox childhood and life certainly inform Bee’s comedy, and has now served as material for her new memoir, I Know I Am, But What Are You?.
But she doesn’t necessarily want us to refer to it as a memoir. As she told one blog, “I don’t know that the story of my life up to now is really worthy of the ‘memoir’ designation. Let’s hold off on that one until I single-handedly unify North and South Korea.” Apparently, stories about her life, like that time she stole a car as a teenager, make it hard to elevate the status of her book to memoir. Instead Bee likes to call it a collection of vignettes.
Whatever her new book may be, The Takeaway was pleased to sit down with Samantha Bee to talk stepmothers, sex ed, and grand theft auto, among other subjects.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.