The Truth About Jerrod Carmichael (2024)

Revisiting Love at The Store and 8, HBO specials from 2014 and 2017 respectively, reveals more hints, including an entire bit dedicated to a friend’s bad idea to come out well past the age when people care. An early cut of Rothaniel planned to reference this moment—“We had an intro that was me, smoking weed [while] watching 8 on my couch, that we cut at the last minute. It was an incredible shot, but content over aesthetic,” Carmichael says. “But yeah, [those old jokes were] definitely the product of hiding in plain sight. Like, maybe if I talk about it, it'll throw them off the trail a little bit. Oh, look at me! I can talk about it, hypothetically, from 30,000 feet. 8 versus Rothaniel is an evolution even just of my own personal comedy. My material was very much from a mountaintop: I feel this way about this and this and this, and blah, blah, blah. The comedian as philosopher kind of thing. Now I'm on the battlefield. Rothaniel is like, I'm pulling up to the beach at Normandy. The explosions are around me. It's of great personal consequence.” If that Home Videos scene with his mother was an Evel Knievel bunny jump, he tells me later, Rothaniel was the great Grand Canyon leap: “We’ll see if he survives.”

Our afternoon together spans four different locations chosen for their solitude. Carmichael’s curiosity is insatiable and boundless: He’ll stop himself mid-sentence to remark on a passerby (“Am I straight?” he wisecracks as he stares like Pepe Le Pew at a gorgeous woman), note that people keep passing us with yellow coffee cups that resemble Wendy’s Frostys, or stop a random person to tell her she looks great.

Sweater, $1,190, by Jil Sander. Pants, Price upon request, by Louis Vuitton Men's. Ring, $4,550, by Bulgari.

Whatever he does wind up working on will likely include standup, in some shape or form. “I hate Jack of All Trades mentality,” he says. “I think you should show a discernible skill and be good at something. I hate when a female singer has a decent voice but they suck at dancing. Bitch, stop moving. Be like Adele, just stand there. Whitney Houston made ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody,’ and she can't dance! But who cares, because her voice was great. I think [standup] is a natural way of communicating for me. I think I probably communicate better, in many ways, on stage than off, and can be more honest.”

The real project Carmichael is committed to working on is unflinching honesty: “I'm not hiding anything, anymore,” he says with impassioned urgency. “So now it's like my 12-Step Truth Program. [Rothaniel] was about the burden of hiding something, keeping the truth away from myself and from the public. And now, it's like, how do I keep [the truth] at the forefront in my own life and in my work? Confronting the things that are there, the things that I would want to push away or push down. Saying what I mean. Communicating my first thought, my first feelings and not my second,” he laughs. “That's the one thing about the special, bro… It’s about being as honest as I purport myself to be. Be who you say you are—or hey, [you can] be a full character… [But] I couldn't handle the purgatory. Like, I'm playing Jerrod Carmichael in my shows, and I'm onstage as Jerrod Carmichael, but I'm not able to fully express myself. It was such a contradiction. It's hell. You build these little hells [for yourself]. Once I knew that I had the power to tell the truth and I wasn't... I had no other choice.”

This is Jerrod Carmichael’s mission going forward: to keep telling the truth, at all costs. With as much earnestness as is possible with a camera recording the action. “There's so much work to be done,” he says, talking about the future creative opportunities his newfound momentum has afforded him—but also talking about himself. “I see the path. Just head down and work.” Describing his mindset post-Rothaniel, post-burden, post secrets, he says “I feel like a man, I guess, if that makes sense. I guess that's what I'm describing. It's made me feel like more of a man. And now, it’s time to work, man.” He will survive.

PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Ryan McGinley
Styled by Ian Bradley
Tailoring by Marius Ahiale at Lars Nord Studio
Produced by Hen’s Tooth Productions

The Truth About Jerrod Carmichael (2024)
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