By Peter Lindblad
Every so often, while comedian Ms. Pat is recording her popular weekly podcast “The Patdown,” the rest of the household starts wilding out.
That’s when she takes it upon herself to restore order, and regular viewers simply can’t get enough of her taking charge and raising her voice. They know it’s coming sooner or later.
“We’re doing ‘The Patdown,’ and I say, ‘I’m podcasting!’” said Ms. Pat, whose real name is Patricia Williams.
Yelling out when she does so, Ms. Pat’s loud interjections – usually vain attempts to get everyone to quiet down – get laughs from her co-hosts Chris Spangle and Deon Curry, a fellow comic, and leave followers in tears. Garnering respect from her family is another matter entirely.
“You know, everybody loves Ms. Pat, but when I go home, nobody cares,” said Ms. Pat. “Nobody cares what I do. Nah, it’s just momma and cook and clean … people are like, ‘You clean?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, you let a cleaner in here, she’s going to sleep with your husband.’ I don’t have time for that drama.”
She’s too busy building a comedy empire that includes her sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show,” currently filming its fourth season, and a TV court show called “Ms. Pat Settles It,” as well as movie roles – she’s in the highly anticipated, upcoming release “Drugstore June” – and a sidesplitting Netflix special titled “Y’all Wanna Hear Something Crazy.”
In between all that, she’s still performing her uniquely unfiltered, outrageous and refreshingly honest brand of stand-up, which she’s been doing for more than 20 years. And she’s in the middle of her first nationwide tour of theaters dubbed “Ya Girl Done Made It,” which stops in Madison on Saturday, Feb. 3, at the Barrymore Theatre. She’s enjoying playing bigger venues.
“Well, at first, I didn’t think I would like theaters, but hey, it’s one night and then I can go home,” said Ms. Pat, one of the best storytellers around. “It’s one in and out and that’s it, so it’s grown on me. I don’t think I’m as in love with clubs as I thought I was.”
Known for her hilarious crowd work, Ms. Pat still gets into it with the audience, even if she’s standing a little farther away than she used to.
“Oh yeah, I still talk. I mean, you know, people know me,” said Ms. Pat. “They feel like I’m a family member, so they like to just start running their mouth out anyway … everywhere. Everywhere I’ve been somebody feels like I’m a cousin, I’m an aunt … they feel like they need to set up and tell me their problems.”
And she’s dealing with it in her own way. It’s not going to get to be a problem.
“Uh, no, because I tell them to shut the hell up and sit down,” she laughed.
For material, Ms. Pat goes to a source that never runs dry: her family.
“It’s my life, Hollywood, I’m still married, the kids, grandkids … I’m always pulling from my life, because I feel like people can always relate to you,” said Ms. Pat. “So, I always try to pull from my life. They are just as crazy. I got the same kids who do dumb sh*t … I mean dumb stuff (laughs). I mean situations just get crazier each time. You know, if it happens at home, and I feel like it’s funny enough, then I decide to use it.”
Those unfamiliar with her story can go read the inspiring, yet often harrowing and disarmingly funny, “Rabbit – The Autobiography of Ms. Pat,” a 2018 finalist for the NCAAP Image Award for Outstanding Literature. Growing up in a wild bootleg house in Atlanta, where she witnessed violence and an assortment of vices, Ms. Pat experienced sexual abuse at the hands of one of her mother’s boyfriends. At age 12, she met a man who was eight years older, who began sexually abusing her. She had her first child at age 14 and her second when she was 15, surviving beatings, being shot twice and getting hit by a dump truck, and all kinds of trauma.
Unable to find work, she turned to selling crack cocaine to support her young family. Rabbit was her street name. During her teenage years, she had abortions, which she’s unabashedly discussed in a frank and honest manner. She spent some time in prison, before meeting her husband, Garrett. They’ve had two children together, and she eventually adopted the four biological children of her niece.
A case worker would convince her to give comedy a try, and she took to it immediately. Now she’s reaping the rewards of years spent grinding away in the business. As she so often says, Ms. Pat finds the funny in everything, even the dark times she’s been through.
Appearances on podcasts, such as those hosted by comics Marc Maron and Joe Rogan, piqued Hollywood’s interest in Ms. Pat, leading to a collaboration on what would become “The Ms. Pat Show” with esteemed director and producer Lee Daniels and Imagine Entertainment, founded by industry heavyweight Brian Grazer and famed director Ron Howard.
“The Ms. Pat Show” has been a rousing success, breaking the BET+ app upon its release.
“You know, I’m very proud of ‘The Ms. Pat Show,’ because it was a little show that wasn’t supposed to make it, but we did and we just got our second Emmy nomination, so that’s big deal because it’s the first time for BET or BET+,” said Ms. Pat. “So, you know, hopefully we get our fifth season and when it’s time to wrap it up, we’ll wrap it up the right way. ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ will always be one of my proudest moments.”
Addressing difficult subjects, “The Ms. Pat Show” is a throwback to classic sitcoms of old, like “Good Times” and “All in the Family.” Jordan E. Cooper is the co-creator, and he brought his vision for a new kind of cussing, multi-cam sitcom to life in concert with Ms. Pat. Swearing is part of the dialogue, but episodes like the one dealing with the childhood trauma of Black hair are touching, important and heartfelt.
“Well, most of the episodes we do, at least 90% of the things we put out there for ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ are taken from my life, so that episode was really hard for not only me, but for my cast members and the black and brown people that were sitting out in the audience that understood, you know, the message we were trying to give with that episode,” said Ms. Pat. “So, we all cried at the end, but we got through it. This season ain’t gonna be no different.”
Fans wouldn’t have it any other way, and Ms. Pat is not afraid of getting canceled. She is not to be trifled with, as she warns.
“I wanna tackle everything major TV is too scared to tackle,” said Ms. Pat. “They mess around with me, they’re gonna see me vote Republican on this show (laughs). My taxes say I should be voting Republican. I don’t know why I don’t want to leave the Democratic party (laughs).”
Filmed in front of a live studio audience, tapings of “The Ms. Pat Show” have been known to erupt into big parties, with people in the crowd dancing in the aisles and having the time of their lives.
“They are, and people come up from all over to see the show tape in Atlanta, and we’re having a ball with it. You know, there’s nothing like seeing it live. Once you see all the cuts and edits to it and it put together, you can say, ‘Oh, I was there,’” she said with a laugh.
Ms. Pat and the cast, which includes J. Bernard Calloway as the dad, Tami Roman as Denise, Briyana Guadalupe as Janelle, Brittany Inge as Ashley, Theodore Barnes as Junebug and Vince Swann as Brandon, have formed a tightknit group of their own.
“Well, I think the way I developed the bond with the cast being family is, I told them up front, ‘I don’t do call sheets,’” said Ms. Pat. “Everyone in Hollywood worries about who’s No. 1 on the call sheet. I worry about my paycheck and just tell them, ‘Hey, we’re all stars. This is all of our show. It takes all of us to make it happen. So, we’re not going to call out a call sheet.’ I did the same thing in my writers’ room. I did not allow people to say they’re the show runner. Hey, what’s your name? That’s it. That’s all we need to know. Everybody knows … it takes all of us to make this sh*t run, and I think that’s why we’re able to all get along.”
An unscripted show, “Ms. Pat Settles It” premiered in 2023, as Hollywood’s writers’ strike was going on. Ms. Pat is the judge, and there’s a jury made of friends, family members, celebrities like Ray J and comics, such as DeRay Davis, Don “DC” Curry and Carmen Barton. It was another hit for Ms. Pat, who is on a roll. She’s waiting for the show to be brought back with new cases and defendants and plaintiffs.
“Oh, they love ‘Ms. Pat Settles It,’” said Ms. Pat. “People who don’t like me cussing on ‘The Ms. Pat Show,’ they go over and watch ‘Ms. Pat Settles It’ and they like that mess, especially the old people. You know because who really wants to go to court? You don’t want to go to court where it’s stale and the judge looking down writing all the time and deciding your future. I’m going to tell you right there in your face.”
With her growing fame, her sitcom given a stamp of approval by none other than the late Norman Lear before he passed, Ms. Pat has become a favorite guest on TV talk shows “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” She thinks she knows why she’s in demand.
“Oh, because I’m different,” said Ms. Pat. “I just go and be me … I can’t hold my breath and talk another way. I might mess up some words, I might spit on you ‘cause I ain’t got no side teeth, but I just gotta be me.”
She’s been to the Emmys and other big Hollywood productions, but Ms. Pat feels more at home in her beloved Atlanta, doing DIY stuff. She’s building a 17,000-square-foot house on the city’s outskirts, acting as the general contractor. It’s almost finished.
“They’re putting in the toilets now,” said Ms. Pat. “It’s been two years long … I think my favorite part was tearing it down, and then I got really scared, because there was a house there before. It’s on seven acres. So, when I tore it down, I said, ‘What the hell did I just do?’ I tore a whole house down that I pay a note on, and I hired an architect, and we put it back. And I made some mistakes. I had to tear out some things and redo some things, but I was like, ‘I’m going to learn on my own.’ Now the house is up, and I’ve been scared every day that it’s going to fall down because I built it.”
It’s no secret that Ms. Pat would love to do her own DIY show.
“Don’t nothing else come for Ms. Pat, that DIY show is coming,” said Ms. Pat.
Until then, she’ll continue to do what she does best: making everyone laugh until they can’t breathe. And her Madison date is coming up soon. She has an idea of what to expect from the Wisconsin crowd.
“They’re the same as everywhere – probably got more Caucasians,” said Ms. Pat. “I’ve been there many times, and I haven’t seen too many that look like me. And they didn’t even know I was coming, so we’ll see. We’ll just get out and have a good time. They got the same problems I do. I mean, my family does crack. Their family does meth. It’s the same thing.”
In these divisive times, when politics has driven a wedge between people with opposing views, Ms. Pat is bringing everyone together with comedy. Maybe she should run for office someday. “I’ve got the biggest Trump fans. I got so many Trump fans,” said Ms. Pat. “They show up with their Confederate hat … I look at it like this. You bought that hat. It probably came from the same place my wigs came from … I just had a man show up at my house cross-eyed as hell, with a Confederate hat on, a Donald Trump hat on, but he was a good gutter guy. I referred him to four more Black families. You can’t do nothing about what people believe in. Some people believe in aliens, but I can’t knock ‘em.”