Who Wants Lisa Lampanelli For a Life Coach? Here’s 6 Lampanelli Approved Ways to Get Help and Help Others
Lisa Lampanelli went “Back to the Drawing Board” for her new special, and she wants to help others do the same.
When Lampanelli’s new special, aptly named “Back to the Drawing Board” premieres Friday night on EPIX, you will hear everything you expect to hear from the Queen of Mean. That means vulgarity, offensive language, shocking stories, some celebrity take downs, and plenty of no-bullshit tell-it-like-it-is truth.
You’ll also hear some things that you’ve never heard before in a comedy special. Like hearing Lampanelli says she is a person who projects light and love, and even though you’ll hear a big laugh from the audience, she’s not kidding. As we’ve written in past interviews with the Queen of Mean, she has done a lot of changing in the years since her last special, and she’s planning to do a lot more. She’s revamped her life, lost 100 lbs, got out of a bad marriage and is continuing to work on spiritual growth. You can see some of those changes in parts of her special, where she takes the audience through some of her deepest flaws and faults. We talked with Lisa what inspired her to share such deeply personal feelings in her special, and asked her what her advice is for others looking for help.
“People don’t know that i have huge insecurities about my looks,” Lampanelli told us. “They don’t know I wont cry in front of somebody, they don’t know that I cry and yell almost in a bipolar fashion, they don’t know how huge my anger is, and really being uncomfortable with sex.” She said. So she decided to just put it out there. “It’s healing and other people feel like oh my god, me too and then they don’t feel like there’s so much shame in it.”
After her father died last year, Lisa said she realized she wanted to help people more than anything else. And it was a drag queen who helped her figure out that she could combine her new desire to be of service, with her stand up comedy. “Here’s the problem, people get preachy sometimes when they decide to have a message, and it’s really gross,” she said. “And I saw a drag queen about a year ago, and he had the most beautiful message of acceptance but it was so funny you didn’t realize it till after the show. And I said this guy is my hero. So I decided since I have this message about self acceptance and liking yourself, and doing service for other people, I said let me just put them in, but I sneak them in.”
Offstage her desire to help others has at times, gotten a little overzealous. About a year ago, she said she even blackmailed someone into letting her help. “My dad’s hospice nurse really wanted to get a divorce so i took her to my attorney…I was like you’re all set. She backed out. So I said listen bitch you know you’re not supposed to be married to that guy if you don’t get a divorce I’m going to tell everybody you killed my father….Swear to God.”
In her enthusiasm to help herself, and her desire to help others, Lampanelli has learned a few things, and shared them with us. If you’ve ever thought, I want Lisa Lampanelli to be my life coach, you’re probably out of luck. But we’ve got the next thing.
Six Lampanelli approved ways to help yourself and others, in Lampanelli’s own words.
1. “You don’t give any advice unless you’re asked.“
This is hard for me because i know everything. I’ve done every self-help, every spiritual practice, everything. So I think I’m the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the world. So first, if they don’t ask, you can’t tell them.
2. “You gotta let go of the results.”
“Then once they ask, you gotta let go of the results. Say you say to your friend, you know, you’d probably feel better about yourself if you started to exercise. And they sit there and they agree and you ask them a week later, so did you start to work out? and they say nooooo I just can’t…instead of getting mad you detach from the results and you meet them where they are. But that doesn’t mean you have to continuously hear them complain.”
3. “Meet people where they are.”
“They lost the right to complain about it after they haven’t taken your advice so you just say you know what? This kind of makes me feel bad to give you advice and you don’t take it which is fine, I’d just rather not hear you complain about it so maybe we can talk about something else. That’s really hard to do, but then people had to do that for me for years where I didnt want to do certain things and they had to be patient with me. It’s called meeting people where they are. We just can’t bring them somewhere else.
4. “Figure out what’s the thing that brings you joy and stop pursuing anything else that doesn’t.”
It might not bring you joy that very second but its bound to later. Does it bring you joy to be healthy? Yeah obviously cause you want to live a long time. Does going to the gym three times a week bring you joy? No but think of the joy later that will come from it. Like, I’m 90 and I can still dance.
So with me, it would be Lisa, what do you want to do more than anything. This play. I want to write this play, get it up and help people. That’s how you zero in on what somebody should be doing.
5. “I always advocate help in every form.”
I think you should attack things emotionally physically, and spiritually so I think all those three things work in tandem. I’m all for shrinks, I’m all for retreats, I’m all for spirituality work, I’m all for healthy food and movement and all that. And all that stuff is hard. You uncover a lot of emotional big stuff and you have to power through or you could live the same way you’ve been living. It’s worked so far. But if you want something a little deeper you gotta just push through.
6. “Live by example. That’s it. It’s the whole thing.”
Lisa Lampanelli’s message driven, still-as-mean-as-ever, but touched with light and love comedy special premieres this Friday on EPIX at 10pm. Here’s how to watch Lisa Lampanelli: Back to the Drawing Board” on EPIX.
