Arguably among the most talked-about comedians of her generation, Whitney Cummings has certainly made her mark on the comedy world over the last several years. Known best by most people for her stand up comedy performances, Cummings has also become a successful television producer who has been involved in several notable shows.

As is the case with almost all celebrities, since Whitney Cummings first rose to fame she has given a slew of interviews and the world has learned quite a bit about her. However, there are some pretty interesting things about her life and career that even her biggest fans aren’t aware of. With that in mind, it is time to get to this list of 20 little-known facts about comedian Whitney Cummings.

20 Different Aspirations

Before Whitney Cummings ever decided to make a living in the entertainment industry, she had other things in mind. A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, immediately after leaving school Whitney wanted to be a journalist. In fact, as she told Jim Norton on his talk show, at one point she filmed herself reading the news but she couldn’t stop laughing and making jokes.

19 Director

Given the fact that Whitney Cummings is an accomplished comedian, actor, and television show creator, it would be reasonable to assume that she has time for little else. Despite that, she actually directed a 2017 indie comedy she also starred in called The Female Brain and a TV miniseries we’ve never heard of called Pet Friendly.

18 Unusual Must-Haves

As any professional comedian will likely be able to tell you, making it in that industry means that you will spend a lot of time on the road traveling to gigs. With that in mind, it makes sense that someone like Whitney Cummings would want to make sure they bring certain items on the road with them at all times. However, when she told the New York Times that she always takes an ostrich pillow, a Diptyque candle, and duct tape on her trips, it wasn’t what we expected.

17 Early Success

For any young comedian, one of the biggest challenges is going to be finding a way to stand out among their peers. However, even early in Whitney Cummings’ career that wasn’t a huge problem. After all, she first got up on stage in 2004 and by 2007 Variety named her one of the 10 Comics to Watch.

16 Behind the Scenes

When Whitney Cummings took part in the Comedy Central Roasts of stars like Joan Rivers and David Hasselhoff, the hilarious jokes she delivered made a whole new audience love her. Funnily enough, that makes even more sense then you may realize as before getting the chance to appear on those shows, she wrote jokes other people delivered in previous Roasts.

15 Learning Experience

Considering that Whitney was a sitcom that not only was named after Whitney Cummings but she starred in, executive produced, and created the show, it was a big deal for her. Unfortunately, Whitney only lasted for two seasons before it was canceled. While that clearly would have been disappointing for Cummings, at least she sees it as a learning experience since she calls the first season “a big experiment for a lot of reasons”.

14 Modeling Work

Definitely a very pretty woman, despite Whitney Cummings’ looks she clearly is known for her comedic mind these days. However, as she told Vanity Fair during an interview, after high school she briefly worked as an “informal model” in department stores and as a part of local fashion shows.

13 No Laughing Matter

From what we can tell from the outside looking in, Whitney Cummings is in a pretty great place in her life right now. However, from the time she was “11 or 12” until relatively recently, Whitney battled an eating disorder. In fact, she told Shape Magazine that in her 20s she would either eat “excessively” or starve herself and she also “started binging and exercising addictively”.

12 Controversial Comments

During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Whitney Cummings spoke about the fact that she is from West Virginia and it is safe to say that many people weren’t happy. Joking that being born there means that she has “hillbilly DNA”, she also said, “there’s a big difference between Virginia and West Virginia, like four chromosomes difference”.

11 Early Work

Even though Punk’d is a show that is best remembered for making stars look like fools, it also provided a service for many actors and comedians who were just starting out. For example, people like Dax Shepard, Kaitlin Olson, B.J. Novak, Stephen Rannazzisi, Bill Hader, and Whitney Cummings all had roles in some of the show’s many pranks.

10 Major Setback

During Last Comic Standing’s nine-season run, it is very safe to say that the show helped to launch many comedians' careers to a whole new level. Unfortunately for Whitney Cummings, Last Comic Standing didn’t do anything to help her career because she auditioned for the show in San Francisco but failed the showcase.

9 Influences

Even though some comedians have a pretty unique voice, virtually all of them have been influenced by many of the people who paved the road for them. For example, during interviews, Whitney Cummings has spoken about being influenced by the likes of George Carlin, Paul Reiser, Dave Attell, Lenny Bruce, and Bill Hicks.

8 Breaking Ground

Due to the success that Whitney Cummings has had as a comedian, a lot of doors have opened up for her over the years. In perhaps the best example of that, Whitney was the first woman in history to perform stand-up comedy in Dubai and Beirut which is really crazy when you think about it.

7 Confined Feeling

As a stand-up comedian and comedy writer, Whitney Cummings has made a career out of making other people laugh. Even though she clearly enjoys that, when she spoke to Vice about her autobiography, she revealed that can be a problem sometimes. This is the case because she can feel “really trapped as a comedian—someone who is supposed to be funny and light, making jokes all the time”.

6 Jumping Off the Train

When it was announced that the sitcom Roseanne would return to television in 2018, a lot of people were very excited. What a lot of fans didn’t realize at the time was Whitney Cummings was involved in the rebooted show as she executive produced it, was the head writer, and co-showrunner. Interestingly enough, before the show got canceled and replaced by The Conners, Whitney had already quit her job.

5 Intern

As we touched on earlier in this list, when Whitney Cummings was younger she hoped to make it as a journalist. What we didn’t reveal at that time, is that in addition to filming herself reading the news at one point, while still in high school Whitney worked at an NBC owned station called WRC-TV as an intern.

4 Extortion

In an ideal world, people would remember that even though many celebrities lead lives that are pretty different than the rest of us, they are still human beings who deserve respect. In reality, however, after Whitney Cummings accidentally posted a revealing photo of herself on Instagram and almost instantly took it down, someone tried to extort money out of her. Contacted by someone who took a screengrab before she took that photo down, when they demanded money Cummings tweeted out the image in order to take her power back.

3 Hard Times

Unfortunately for Whitney Cummings, when she was a child her home life could be quite difficult at times. This is the case because, during the early years of Whitney’s life, her mother struggled with alcoholism to such a degree that she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle.

2 Talk Show Failure

When Whitney Cummings became the host of a short-lived talk show called Love You, Mean It With Whitney Cummings, she must have been excited. Unfortunately, the show was a failure not just because it was quickly canceled. After all, when talking about the show to LA Weekly, Whitney asked, “What’s the point of having a show on the air if you don’t believe in [it] or are miserable?”

1 Backlash

As we touched on earlier in this list, Whitney Cummings has had a lot of success in the TV world. While that is a good thing, during a Howard Stern interview Whitney said that “as soon as I got the show, I felt like everyone was against me” while speaking about fellow comedians. Feeling like her friends had turned against her was really hard for Whitney because she’d previously believed that “comics were like my family.”

Sources: vanityfair, nydailynews, variety, thelaughbutton, CNN, theguardian