Heather McMahan Is So Much More Than an Instagram Comedian (2025)

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the name Heather McMahan, you’ll probably recognize her face. That’s because there’s a high likelihood that, at some point, a friend has sent you one of her comedy videos on Instagram—maybe the one about her undying love for Old Navy or about that (fake) debate you do at dinner before ordering spinach dip—with the message, “omg, this is so us.”

McMahan, 36, spent years grinding away trying to make it as a comedian and actor in Hollywood before taking a break following her father’s sudden passing from pancreatic cancer in 2015. Home in Atlanta, she started posting quippy musings on life, funny stories, and highly entertaining observations on pop culture to Instagram.

She soon attracted a following of mostly millennial women who found in McMahan an over-the-top hilarious bestie who always has the right thing to say about the mundane, weird, or most tragic parts of being a woman. McMahan has never shied away from making jokes out of her personal experiences, from her fertility struggles and experience with IVF (you won’t be able to stop laughing listening to her describe being on testosterone) to her tongue-in-cheek indignation when other “full-figured women” like Rebel Wilson and Adele get suddenly snatched. (“Hey, nobody called me, I’m part of that same club,” she says. “Next time, just let me know when we’re all getting thin.”)

McMahan now has more than 750,000 followers on Instagram, a hit podcast Absolutely Not!, and is currently touring nationwide. And she’s preparing for her biggest stage yet: Netflix. Her first comedy special, Son I Never Had!, premieres on the platform Tuesday. The special, whose title is an ode to her father and his pride in his daughter’s toughness as a youth, is a raucous introduction to McMahan’s ability to find humor in her life, even the hard parts.

“I talk about everything from infertility to when I was on edibles to what it was like to be a chubby kid,” she says. “At the end of the day, the joke’s always on me, and I think that’s really relatable.”

Glamour: You have devoted fans on- and offline, but your Netflix special has the potential to introduce you to an entirely new audience. For those new to you, how would you describe your brand of comedy?

Heather McMahan: I think this special is a great introduction to me. I talk about my childhood, I talk about my relationship with my family, and then I talk about my first big moments of how I launched into this big comedy career. So I really tried to take people along for the ride so they understand the trajectory of how everything happened. I would describe my comedy as honestly, just really joyful and it’s, I think, really relatable. Like I started talking about my fertility issues publicly—the experience of egg freezing and how I couldn’t believe that somebody just let me go home with a bag of syringes. So many people reached out to me and said, “This is unbelievably relatable. Nobody's really talked about this publicly before.” I was like, I can’t believe that I had to go through it the way I did; this is unhinged. I can’t believe that more people aren’t talking about this.

That was one of my favorite parts of the special. There is this movement right now to talk about IVF and fertility because it’s something that can feel really isolating. I have to say, I’ve consumed a lot of media about fertility, but I’ve never had it described in a comedic way. Your descriptions were so accurate and so funny. Why did you decide to make fun of how unhinged it is?

Nobody prepares you for it. Nobody tells you what’s going to happen to your body, how you’re going to feel. When I went through it, I was like, One, I totally misunderstood my friends who were going through the process and now I have such a real game-time outlook on how it works. Second of all, I was just like, This whole thing is so out of body and so hysterical. Of course I’m going to talk about it.

You start the special by talking about your experience being a larger kid growing up, and about the body positivity movement and your experience with it. Now as an adult, what does body positivity mean for you?

My take on it in the special is when you’re a chubby kid, you’re just set up to be a warrior in life, right? It makes me laugh. Hollywood has become so body positive and now you can’t even joke about your own body or your own weight, when people have made fun of you for so long. Then all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh no, we all have to just accept everything….” I just find it so funny that people want to comment on your body forever, and then when you’re comfortable with yourself, then you’re too confident, and then if you make a sarcastic or self-deprecating joke about anything about your body, then you need to love yourself more. It’s like, “Let me stay in my own fucking lane.” You know what I mean?

It’s almost like women can't win!

Women cannot win, and I know, listen, I’m already prepared. I’m sure somebody’s going to have something to say about me making jokes about these other lovely women like Adele and Rebel losing weight, but really the joke’s on me. The joke is I felt left out of the group. Somebody just call me and let me know that we’re going to start exercising!

I feel like it’s such a weird time in body positivity, too, with all the Ozempic stuff. It’s like, “Oh, you should—and could!— be super, super thin because being super thin is cool again.” I’m curious about your take on that whole conversation.

Do anything that makes you feel good about yourself. Is it annoying when you see these already very thin celebrities doing it? Sure, but you know what? It can change people’s lives. Modern medicine is a beautiful thing, and it is so annoying. Again, you can’t win. If you get on something to better yourself or to fix your fucking blood sugar, all of a sudden you’re cheating the system. Like no, take several seats. I also feel that way about plastic surgery. If you want to do something to make yourself feel better, it’s all about you. Because guess what? If you feel better, you’re going to be nicer. Lisa Rinna says that if you look better, you’ll feel better. And then if you feel better, you’ll be nicer. And everyone’s an asshole, so why don’t we all just go get some Botox and be nice?

So much of your comedy is about self-love. Where do you draw your confidence from?

It’s funny. I grew up in a family where everyone really came with their A-game of best material at dinner every night. A real savage family. So I can take a joke, I can take criticism, I have thick skin. I think my confidence has always come from just, at the end of the day, nothing really matters. Why be hard on yourself? I’ve spent so many years being so hard on myself, it’s like, You know what? I’m fun. I’m a good time. I’ve got a great face, nice tits. Let’s just have a good time.

It’s clear, watching your special, how important your family is to you. I especially loved the parts about your dad. I feel like the special in many ways is a tribute to your dad, and it’s clearly a really awesome tribute to him. I’m curious how he influenced your comedy and your sense of humor.

My dad was truly one of the funniest guys in the world. It is really interesting, not to sound too philosophical, but I think when you parent, you parent from fear. My dad would always encourage me to do anything other than comedy, and it was simply because he was very successful in his business and he felt like, “I don’t have any connections. I can’t help you.” Your parents always want to be able to help you in any way they can. And it was scary for him. He used to always tell me, “You’re so brave to do this. I know you’re funny, but you’re so brave.” For me, there was no backup plan. There was nothing else to fall back on. I told him, “Dad, this is something I have to do.” So when my dad would text-message me and be like, “Hey, are you sure you want to get into real estate or have you ever thought about joining the Air Force?” He did anything in his power, from the most loving point of view as a parent, to try to persuade me not to do comedy. And it was just simply because he’s like, “You don’t have a net to fall back on.”

I think the coolest thing is now this all coming full circle. I mean, is it bittersweet? Obviously it is, to be telling jokes about my dad passing, for sure. But it’s also a beautiful thing that I know my dad’s always with me and he was my biggest champion. When I had any success he was the first person at all my shows in the front row. So it’s just a beautiful thing that now I have had this moment and have had this success, but it’s bittersweet. I wish he was here to celebrate with me.

Because your show is so personal, it really feels like a labor of love, not to make a weird pregnancy metaphor.

It’s my first real personal exposure to the world. You do this thing, it’s your creative baby and it brings you joy. You know what brings your fans joy. People came out to all these sold-out shows. Now it’s just going to sit at Netflix and any person in the world can watch it and criticize it. So that’s a very vulnerable, weird feeling. But I’m excited because also I feel so privileged and blessed that I get to do this and my job at the end of the day is to make people laugh. That’s the best feeling in the world. That really is whether I’m your cup of tea or not. If you enjoy it, then more power to you.

As we speak, the special comes out tomorrow. How do you feel?

I definitely low-key had some nervous diarrhea. I think it’s wild. It’s so crazy. But what’s weird is that as a little kid, I always knew this was what I was going to do. When all the other kids were playing house. I would pretend to be on Letterman or Leno or Conan. I’d have my sister interview me. So now it is actually happening, it’s wild. It’s scary, but it’s also like that little chubby kid in the back of my mind is like, I knew this is what we were going to do. I feel like I’m just sitting at the table where I was always meant to eat.

This was your dream for so long, but as you talk about in the special, you grinded for years at comedy and acting before finding success on Instagram. Now that you’re at this moment, how do you feel about that path you’ve taken to success and what would you tell yourself back then? What advice would you give to another woman chasing her dream?

I would not change a single thing. Everything that happened was the way it was supposed to happen. I have been doing stand-up since I was 16; I just used Instagram as a vessel to get my characters and my name and my humor out there, so my advice is just do it. I’d shout from the rooftops. People just get mad at other people who are doing the thing. So don’t doubt yourself. Put it out there in whatever way. If you’re a musician, fucking go on the corner and do the damn songs. You only regret the things you didn’t do. You never regret the things you did do. I mean, there’s also probably a couple of things I do regret, but it’s like, just do it. And I would tell myself to trust the process and honestly live fearlessly. If it doesn’t scare you, then I think you’re not doing it right.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Stephanie McNeal is a senior editor at Glamour and the author of Swipe Up for More! Inside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers.