Chloe Hillard, a comedian who writes for multiple television shows including “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” delivered a stand-up comedy show on Saturday night in a packed Jack Magee’s Pub. The show is a part of a series of events the College is putting on in celebration of Black History Month.

Hillard incorporated many elements of her personal life into the show, including relationships, her life in college and her recent move to Los Angeles.

Hillard also drew upon her experiences in her memoir entitled “Fuck Your Diet,” which came out in 2020 and is about her relationship to food and struggles with self-confidence. She writes in the book about the multitude of factors that affect a person’s diet and weight, like their socioeconomic background and whether they live in a food desert.

“What you have access to contributes to your health … and it has lingering effects, but as a fat kid growing up, I didn’t know all of that, so I got bullied a lot,” Hillard said. “Because of that, I became introverted. And because of that, I became a comedian. And because of that, I’m in therapy.”

In an interview with the Orient, Hillard spoke about using humor to deal with painful experiences.

“For me, once I’m able to inject humor into a situation, that lets me know I’ve gotten past the trauma of it,” Hillard said. “And sometimes you need the humor to work through the trauma.”

Hillard took a stand-up comedy class in college as a way to hone her broadcast journalism skills—her focus at the time. When she performed in front of her friends and family at the end-of-term performance, they told her she should stay with comedy beyond the class. She has now been doing comedy for more than ten years.

A New York City native who moved to Los Angeles soon after the onset of the pandemic, Hillard joked about the strife between the two cities.

“When you’re a native New Yorker, you’re just taught to hate L.A.,” Hillard said. “We be like, ‘They don’t know how to parallel park, they eat kale all the time, they be hiking on Christmas.’ Then I moved to L.A. and I was like, ‘This is really nice.’”

She quipped on how the history behind each region in the United States influences their respective cultures today.

“You think about the West Coast—everybody came out here for a dream,” she said. “They was like, ‘Oh, we have this oil and gold—we are going to go out there and change our whole life. I’m going to be the one to make a difference in my family.’ And that is why everybody on the West Coast is delusional.”

At another point, Hillard joked about women as a scapegoat in America.

“Whenever you watch the news and there was a mass shooting, they are like, ‘Tim Timothy: He shot up people because he never had a girlfriend,’” she said. “You told women not to be whores and now [that] you couldn’t get a girlfriend is suddenly our fault.”

“But I started thinking about it and ladies, maybe it is our fault. Maybe we should have slept with more weirdos in high school,” she said.

Augie Segger ’23, who attended the show, reflected on Hillard’s performance with enthusiasm.

“I thought it was really funny. I appreciate how she tailored it to us, too,” Segger said.

Hillard ended the show with a reflection on aging and ambition.

“I was in my 20s and I really thought I had my life figured out.… You would meet up with your college friends and say these silly things like, ‘I’m gonna get married, you’re gonna get married, I’m gonna start a business, you’re gonna start a business.’” Hillard said. “Then you get older and you have perspective in life. You’re like, ‘I’m gonna get a roommate, you’re gonna get a roommate, I’m gonna go to therapy, you’re gonna go to therapy, I’m gonna start an OnlyFans, you’re gonna start an OnlyFans.”