Growing up in inner-city Atlanta at the height of the crack epidemic, Patricia Williams (aka “Ms. Pat”) bared all in her 2017 memoir, “Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat,” co-written with Jeannine Amber.
Her mom, she writes, was “an alcoholic single mother with five kids. She could barely read and only knew enough math to play the numbers and count out the exact change to buy herself a couple of bottles of Schlitz Malt Liquor and a nickel bag of weed. Almost none of my relatives … graduated high school.”
She learned to pickpocket. She was sexually abused, she writes. Williams fantasied about a different life while watching “Leave It to Beaver.” She writes:
“In my house, my mother would get drunk off her gin, whoop me with an extension cord, call me ugly … [TV] doesn’t show what it’s like for girls like me … one minute you’re a 12-year-old looking for attention, then suddenly you end up pregnant at 13 …”
By 15, “I was a single mom with a seventh-grade education, no job skills, no money, and two babies under the age of 2.” She sold crack cocaine, was shot twice, “beaten with a roller skate, locked behind bars … nearly got my head blown off … Somehow I survived.”
More than surviving, Williams turned her struggles into comedy gold.
She’s out to prove there is no struggle you can’t laugh at, as she said in a recent interview with Boston.com.
Her stand-up bits might talk about selling crack cocaine, lunchtime in juvenile hall, keeping a pistol and drugs in a diaper bag.
So when Ms. Pat appears at Boston’s Wilbur on Feb. 24 — arriving with two TV shows and a memoir that was a finalist for both an NAACP Image Award and a 2018 Southern Book Prize under her belt — she’s calling it, aptly, the “Ya Girl Done Made It Tour.”
For a more PG-13 flavor of Williams’ stand-up (her Netflix special is definitely rated R) take this bit from her 2015 appearance on Comedy Central’s “This is Not Happening”:
She tells the crowd about selling crack cocaine in her Cadillac: “I always had to keep a client in the car with me because I was 16 years old with a learner’s permit and I didn’t want to risk the chance of losing my f— permit.”
When a “rival” spits on her car, threatens her life and returns with a gun, she grabs her pistol, but the safety is on. (“If your s— on safety, you’re not in a shootout any longer. You’re being shot at.”) So she takes off running. Bleeding, Williams thinks she cut her chest on a fence. A friend calls 911. (“The EMT guy tried to take my bra off … and he’s struggling like hell.”) Turned out she’d been shot. The bullet exited through her nipple, the EMT tells her. “Like a bullseye?” she asks. She recounts, deadpan, that the doctor later told her: “Well, ma’am, you’re really lucky. Because if you were an A-cup you would have died.”
Three seasons of her Emmy-nominated BET+ sitcom based on her life, “The Ms. Pat Show,” are now streaming — for a sense of her raw storytelling, its first Emmy nod was for Outstanding Direction for an episode where Pat confronts the man who abused her as a teenager. She’s also got a new courtroom-style show a la Judge Judy, “Ms. Pat Settles It,” and podcast, “The Patdown with Ms. Pat.”
We caught up with the busy Williams ahead of her Boston stop to talk Boston seafood, laughing at adversity, and why she’s glad Tom Brady left the Pats.
Boston.com: Tell me a bit about this show you’re bringing to Boston.
Ms. Pat: Just life. What I’ve gone through. Real personal story. That’s what I always bring. I think it’s been a year since I went to Boston. I love Boston.
Anything in particular you liked?
I hate to say this ’cause I’m fat but there’s this restaurant called Neptune. I love that place. I’m so fat I’d be there before they open in the morning because the line is so long.
[laughs] What are some other restaurants you like here?
That’s the only one I ever go to.
[laughs] OK. You’ve also got season three of “The Ms. Pat Show.“
No, no, no, this is season four, girlfriend! Then I’m going into the second season of “Ms Pat Settles It.” So I’m excited.
[laughs] Right, you just finished filming season four. What do you like about doing the show?
It’s personal. It’s real. It’s 90 percent of my life. The most exciting thing is that we’re nominated for two Emmys — and we’re on BET+. So the first time BET+ ever got an Emmy nomination [is] from “The Ms. Pat Show.”
It took some time to find the right home.
It was [at] FOX, Hulu didn’t pick it up, and we went over to BET+. And I’m glad we went there because it allowed me to be Black. [laughs]
What do you mean?
You know, just so I can tell the stories the way I want to tell ’em.
In what way? What kind of stories were you out to tell?
I was able to tell a story about getting an abortion. I was able to tell a story about a bad relationship. About me [formerly] being a drug dealer. The audience loves it because they finally got a mother on TV who represents mothers like me. They always put mothers on TV that act like we’re perfect. We’re cursed. We’ve been to jail. We’ve made mistakes. I think I’m the first mother on TV that ever admittedly says, “Hey, I got a background.” They keep us in the kitchen cooking.
I hear all the time, people come up to me, “Oh my God, Ms. Pat, you remind me of my aunt, you remind me of my mom.” So I feel like a family member to the people who watch the show.
You were on “Last Comic Standing” in 2015.
Yes, that was also a really nice boost to my career. Didn’t win — got put off on my birthday — but it was a really nice boost. It was an experience. I [was] just hoping that people will remember who I am. So I did it, and went on to the next step. Everything to me is just a piece of the puzzle.
What was the next piece?
I was offered a show later on, after doing Marc Maron and Joe Rogan podcasts. I got into podcasting. I just always tell younger comics, just gotta keep going, everything is a piece to the puzzle. Even “The Ms. Pat Show” — that’s not my end-all. “Okay, I got a show, I accomplished something.” No. You gotta keep going.
You’re known as somebody who has turned lemons into lemonade. Is this something you wanted to do for people as a message? Or did that help you?
I’ve always just been an honest person. When I’m honest about what I’ve been through in life, people can connect because they feel like I’m telling their story. I ain’t no counselor. I’m not out here trying to heal anybody. But I did learn along the way: when you don’t dwell on anything that you don’t have control over, it can make your life a lot easier.
[My standup] is dark, it’s funny, it’s life. I talk about what I go through on a daily basis. And that’s how I come up with a bit. Something I saw my grandkids do; something my [family] did, what I experience. If it sparks, I turn it into something, if not, I keep it moving.
Who’s your favorite comedian?
Richard Pryor. I like Kevin Hart. I like Wanda Sykes. But my favorite is Richard Pryor because I’m a storyteller.
Did you grow up watching him?
Oh, no. I learned about him once I got in the business. I didn’t even know he was a comedian. I thought he was a damn movie star.
Wanda Sykes produced your Netflix special.
She did a wonderful job. That was the first one — I’m looking forward to doing another, I hope.
Was there anything you felt like you couldn’t talk about in that special?
No. I don’t let them tell me what I can do. I’m [51]. If you don’t want it, you don’t want it. I’m at the point in my life where [I can say], “you don’t have to take it.”
[laughs] And what’s your favorite part of doing “The Ms. Pat Show”?
Getting renewed.
[laughs]
We have a ball doing it, we do it in front of a live studio audience in Atlanta. So just continuing to get renewed and get nominated for awards, those are my favorite moments.
It’s great that you do it in front of a live studio audience because that doesn’t happen often anymore. It feels like the old ’90s sitcoms.
And it didn’t happen in Atlanta at all. They usually shoot them in LA, they don’t shoot them in Atlanta. So we went to Atlanta and built a whole multi-camera scene.
Why a live studio audience? Do you just like that feeling?
I’m a comedian. It really is exactly what a comedian needs.
Do you prefer stand-up or a filmed TV show?
I’m blessed and thankful for the TV show, but I love stand-up because that’s how I got here. That’s what I own. That’s what I can control. The network owns “The Ms. Pat Show.”
True. So you started doing stand-up in Atlanta in 2002. What sparked that?
A caseworker told me I should give it a try, that I was funny. I gave it a try, and here I am 20-something years later.
Have you always been funny?
I never looked at myself as being funny. I looked at myself more as just saying what was on my mind.
But you must have gotten told, growing up, that you were funny.
I did. I got told that a lot.
[laughs] You mentioned Richard Pryor. Is there anyone else that influences you?
Dave Chappelle. I don’t watch a lot of comedy like I used to when I first started because I’m so busy. But you always see comedians doing well — Kat Williams — you hope to reach those levels.
You have “Rabbit.” What sparked that in 2017?
I was just telling my story on the podcast and a writer heard me and said you should have a [book] — and honestly, this is how these things happen in my life — she took me in, I got a book deal, and we wrote “Rabbit.”
Was it cathartic to write? You must’ve had a lot of feelings come up during that process.
Oh, yeah. It was very emotional. But it was also a very healing process for me. I was able to tell stories that I don’t tell on stage — I was able to put those stories in the book. And people related with them even more.
What would you want people to get out of the book?
You don’t have to dwell on stuff you don’t have control over. Take the pain in your life and laugh at it.
Anything you want to tell your Boston fans?
Thank God ya’ll don’t have Tom Brady anymore. I can like being in Boston. Massachusetts was a heartbreak for a long time. I’m a crazy Falcon fan.
Featured image credit: Ms. Pat. – Courtesy Photo / Mindy Tucker
