Christian Comedian Talks Career, Rise to Fame, and Struggles in the Spotlight
By Movieguide® Contributor
Comedian John Crist joined FOX News Brian Kilmeade to talk through his career and his rise to fame.
Crist first became popular through his YouTube sketches, but he was initially nervous about poking fun at the Christian life.
Crist mentioned that before he got on stage to perform, he needed to go see another Christian comedian to understand how to tell jokes about the Bible.
“I always thought we were a sequestered community; we would drive to church, and we would pass twenty churches on the way and my parents would tell me not to look.”
He continued, “I was homeschooled and very sheltered. So, I started telling these jokes about growing up in church. I would do a joke like ‘just because your kid is named a Bible name doesn’t mean he’s going to be a good kid because I’m pretty sure a kid in sixth grade named Jesus stole my bike.’”
It’s these sort of jokes that endeared Crist to the Christian community, a niche often unreached by comedians. Crist began to realize that what made him unique — his Christian faith and upbringing — would strike a chord with his audience.
“Jim Gaffigan has a bit about growing up Catholic, having six kids, and trying to steal cake at night when his kids are sleeping,” Crist said. “No one can steal that, that’s his joke. If I talk about being homeschooled and working at Chick-Fil-A no one can steal that. I lived it and I tell it from my perspective. So, then I just started doubling down. I’m just going to talk about me and that’s when my career took off.”
Crist’s fans began to see their own lives in his jokes, and he skyrocketed to popularity. Crist even landed a Netflix special before he was exposed for some of his sin.
In his new book Delete That, “With self-deprecating wit, Crist chronicles his meteoric rise as an online and stand-up comedian, but he doesn’t gloss over the ways his own life choices did not align with his online image—a gap between perception and reality that eventually led to a stint in rehab. In Delete That, Crist takes responsibility for his actions, offers some reflections on how to do better, and encourages us all to stop capitulating to the fear of “But what will they think?!” This book offers a bold invitation to stop curating life and start living it…one Nickelback concert at a time,” according to the synopsis.
Movieguide® previously reported:
“I’ve been through a lot the last two years of my life,” Crist said during a recent show. “I’ve been through a lot of embarrassing things.”
Amid jokes, Crist shared with the audience what it was like in rehab and confessed that “there’s a lot of shame surrounding sex.”
“I wanted to commit suicide,” he said. “I was in rehab for four months.”
However, Crist did not sugarcoat his experience in rehab but said that he was thankful that it happened.
“The only thing worse is if that had never happened to me,” he said, adding later: “Every time I had like a sold-out show or anything I did on television … I thought that if everybody knew the truth about me that all of these people would hate me.
“In that whole rehabilitation process, I found out there’s a God that loves you, and He cares about you, and He’s not mad at you,” he continued.
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