Comedian Ziwe Fumudoh Says Britney Spears Was 'Ripped Apart By The Media'

Comedian Ziwe Fumudoh is an American comedian and writer known for her satire on politics and race.

In a previous interview with the AV Club, she once called herself the “Nikola Tesla of Zoom calls.” Before we get into what she had to say about Britney Spears, here's a little bit about who Ziwe is if you're not familiar with her hysterical comedy show, ZIWE.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown changed the way a lot of people lived their lives, and that included Ziwe.

I mean, 2020 was a humbling experience,” she explained. “It made me reinvent the way I approached life as a human, where suddenly I’m taking care of myself, and I have plants in my house, and I’m resting, and I have a smaller circle, and I’m really investing in, like, emotional bonds. And so I think that that’s reflective of my work, where it’s more quality over quantity, certainly.”

“It’s very strange to be like, ‘Yes, me, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk—great 2020s!’ That’s certainly never been my intention; all I wanted to do is create meaningful art, and that’s what I’ve been doing for years,” she continued. “And, you know, with 2020 and the conversation around the racial uprisings, people are finally starting to pay attention to conversations and discourses about race. But I’ve been doing this for years, so that’s what 2020 did, is that people started to notice what I’ve been doing.”

Believe it or not, Ziwe first got her start writing for the satirical publication “The Onion.”

“I think The Onion makes you into a high-capacity writer where you just throw a lot at the wall—and most of it gets rejected, and then you don’t get paid, and then you don’t eat,” she explained. “The Onion was the first place to ever pay me for a joke. So that experience where you’re just writing it into the void, you learn to be less precious about what you create, and you learn to also not be afraid to kind go out of the box and really write things that are both satirical and thoughtful, but are also funny.”

“And I think you see that reflected in my work, where I’m satirical,” she added. “I’m funny, but I’m also saying something that has a point.”

“And I’m not afraid to fail publicly,” she went on. “And that is a curse because it’s really embarrassing, but it’s a blessing because it’s a weight off my shoulder.”

Ziwe said that music is “absolutely” a source of inspiration for her and outed herself as being a fan of the “Oops!... I Did It Again” singer.

“I was one of those kids that was obsessed with Britney Spears, and I would sing ‘...Baby One More Time’ ad nauseam, and my parents were annoyed by that,” She joked. “So I was really influenced by that moment in pop culture.”

“I also find it to be quite radical, because not only were those women—specifically Britney Spears—kind of revered as the peak of femininity, but they were also ripped apart by the media,” she went on. “So I find that sort of contradiction to be quite fascinating in the ways in which I perform femininity.”

For fans looking to see more of Ziwe, she released her Showtime season 2 trailer on Twitter earlier this month. New episodes will start streaming on April 29.