KATHERINE Ryan never shies away from saying exactly what she thinks.
While some comedians often discuss how difficult it is to perform in a world where people are constantly offended, the 41-year-old Canadian star isn’t concerned about being cancelled.
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“Not at all,” she says. “We articulate ourselves the best we can with the information that we have at the time.
“With social media, comedians are giving so much more of themselves, and your audience really know you.
“It’s become a two-sided conversation, which allows people to be more forgiving about your growth.
“Something you might have said in 2004, you would not say today. People can tell when something is predatory, mean-spirited or explicitly racist, or when some people just misspeak.
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“Men are offended that I seem to not like them in my stand-up – but they are getting used to it,” she adds, laughing.
“Some people really like to be offended. They have this entitlement bubbling up. They choose to take something and twist it and make it about them. It’s not my job to navigate that.
“The only people I worry about offending in my stand-up are my family.”
Katherine is refreshingly unfazed by discussing the difficult stuff.
In 2022, during a BBC interview with Louis Theroux, she revealed she had, five years earlier, called out an unnamed man as a “perpetrator of sexual assault” when they appeared on a comedy show together.
Rumours swirled that the unnamed person was comedian Russell Brand.
Then, in September 2023, Brand, 48, was accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse by four women as part of an investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times, and Channel 4’s Dispatches.
He has strongly denied all allegations, stating that every one of his sexual relationships were consensual.
Katherine had been criticised for not naming the person she was referring to in the BBC interview.
In fact, it felt like there was more outrage over her saying something than there was towards the man’s behaviour.
So, does she regret speaking out? “No,” she says, adamantly. “I didn’t think it was going to get the mileage that it did, because it wasn’t news to me.
I just wanted to make sure he knew that I knew
Katherine Ryan
“Everybody already knew [about it]. So why, seven years later, did they decide to actually care and make a big deal of it? That shocked me, but I didn’t regret it.
“I feel like I did what I did with the information that I had. I chose to handle it a certain way. I wasn’t even trying to warn anybody. I was just trying to make sure he knew that I knew.
“I wasn’t going to be another person who pandered to him or was impressed by him or smiled at him. I just decided to be a c**t,” she laughs.
“Away from the stage, like many women in their 40s, Katherine is torn over whether she wants more children.
“She’s already a mother to Violet, 16, from a previous relationship, as well as Fred, three, and Fenna, 21 months, with husband Bobby Kootstra, 42.
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“I talk about it all the time,” she explains. “It’s interesting to a lot of women my age. We’ve been told to focus on our careers.
“Then we get to a point where it’s like: ‘Ooh, if I’m going to have my own biological children, the traditional way that I envisaged, then s**t, I’m going to have to do it now.’ Then it’s never a good time.
“But 40 is definitely, statistically, a really tricky time. So, I don’t know that I want more kids, but I don’t like the idea of that choice being taken off the table.
“That kind of bugs me, just as a rebel, and I think: ‘How dare God decide?’”
But while much has been said about the unfairness of female biological clocks versus men who can continue to have children much later, Katherine thinks it’s a good thing we are forced to stop.
‘I’m exhausted’
She says: “I used to think it was frustrating, because I would see Robert De Niro or Bernie Eccleston having another baby.
But then, I look after my two kids. Robert De Niro has to do very little. He has to, like, bring home a pay cheque, pat these babies on the head and remember their names, whereas I have to be the mother.
“I think: ‘Katherine, when you are 55, you want to be drinking margaritas on a beach. You don’t want to have a newborn.’ A dad can be a dad at any age. But to be a mom is a lot of work. I’m exhausted!
“Saying that, we would like one more, but that seems foolish. I just like making people. It’s fun. They smell nice. So it’s not off the table. But I don’t think that we’d push it and do surrogacy or anything.”
Katherine jokes that her problem with having children now is not that she’s older, but that she’s used to the finer things in life. She says when she had Violet at the age of 25, she struggled as a young, single mum, but didn’t realise it at the time.
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“It is nice to have a baby when you’re young, because it’s hard financially, but you haven’t been spoilt.
“You don’t notice that you’re not getting your nails done or not going out, because you never did that. Then I had a taste of the good life and it was taken away.
“My life is not really my own for a long time now, because I’m, like, beholden to these children.
“But then, Violet and Fenna are almost 14 years apart. I kind of planned it perfectly, because Violet is really useful. We have a glorified au pair!”
Having a fourth child is being made harder by the fact Katherine and Bobby sleep in separate beds. Katherine sleeps with Fenna, while Bobby sleeps in a different room with Fred.
Katherine explains: “Bobby just doesn’t have as much patience as me. He cannot exist on three hours of sleep like I do.
“I’ve had a lot of experts say: ‘You have to sleep with your husband. It’s really good for your relationship and your intimacy.’
“But I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say that will convince me that I should leave an infant alone in a room.
“That’s just me. If you are working and you need sleep and your children are safe in their cot, by all means, let them cry. But I think you should sleep with them until they’re sleeping through the night.
I’d like to share a bed with Bobby, but there’s time for that
Katherine Ryan
“I’ve had so much pushback on that. I’ve also had a lot of encouragement from people.
“I would like to share a bed with Bobby. [We have] a nice master bedroom, designed by me.
“I deserve to sleep in it, instead of sleeping at the foot of my kid’s bed – like a dog! But there’s so much time for that.”
Katherine, who is currently on the road with her tour Battleaxe, is so set on her bedtime routine that she comes home every night to sleep with the kids.
She explains: “If I’m anywhere within three hours, then I’ll sleep at home and go out on tour again the next day. I don’t really know any dads who tour the way I do, because, presumably, they’ve got a wife with the kids at home.
“But my kids know if I’m not there and they give me the cold shoulder when I come home, so I wake up with them, then around 3pm I’ll go out to the next city and do the tour, and then come home. It’s not climate-conscious, but it’s fine.”
Her comedy show focuses on discussing all her family dramas on stage, but she is mindful to keep some things private. “I have pretty good radar for what’s appropriate to share.
“If I didn’t love Bobby or if I was angry with him, people wouldn’t join in and laugh. It would be really awkward.
“What I’m doing is trying to hold up a mirror to other relationships, especially women who feel like they are a casualty of Western feminism, where they’re told that they can ‘have it all’.
‘My teenage daughter thinks my stand-up is cringey’
“They work really hard and then they take on the mental load of raising their children. And it’ll never be enough. It’s not even Bobby’s fault that I’m hyper-competent!”
Katherine, who is returning with a second series of her UKTV reality show, At Home With Katherine Ryan, is most careful about making jokes about her eldest daughter Violet.
She says: “Violet likes the benefits of me being a comedian – like having 20,000 followers on TikTok. I wish she didn’t. I don’t like it at all as, statistically, some [of those people] are going to be weird.
“I’m going to pull that back now she’s back at school. But she has a good head on her shoulders. She said to me: ‘You know what one of my best qualities is? I never forgive anyone for anything.’ She holds a grudge.
“She’s the one I’m most careful about. I’ve seen [comedians] Kevin Hart and Bert Kreischer talk about their daughters’ first periods on stage.
“I hate that. Even if she consents at that age, she’s going to be embarrassed at 16. So there are elements of it [me being famous] that she really likes.
“But she does get embarrassed. If I talk about sex, she thinks it’s disgusting, and she does think my stand-up is cringey.”
While women in comedy have talked about struggling to break through, Katherine could not be more of a cheerleader for fellow female comics, listing numerous up-and-coming stars she loves.
Women in this country are so supportive of each other
Katherine Ryan
She is also returning for the second series of panel show Out Of Order with Judi Love and Rosie Jones, and she can’t help gushing over them.
“Out Of Order is not like any show I’ve done before. It’s about making snap judgements about people, but it’s so the antithesis of what it looks like.
“And it’s really funny. This show reminds you that it’s not just about improving gender disparity on TV, but that also many shows are quite ableist, too.
“In my experience, I have found the women in this country are so supportive of each other.
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“We have a WhatsApp group and we share things like: ‘I can’t do this gig, does anyone want it?’ or: ‘Don’t take less money than this.’ Or: ‘This specific s**t happened to me.’ It’s just looking out for each other.
“You just need to push yourself, because in the beginning, when I started on Mock The Week or wherever, it didn’t even look strange to me that television was a lot of white men who went to private school. I took for granted that’s what television looked like.
“And I think it takes a conscious effort to undo this unconscious bias and make sure you’re not just always hiring your mates.” Katherine feels like the kind of girl you could chat to all day (and we did).
Perhaps the secret to her success is that she always seems to be enjoying herself.
She nods: “Touring is really fun. Being with my kids is so much fun. That’s why I had them and why I spend so much time with them.
“I really like the people I made. I really love my husband, as much as I slag him off on tour! I really feel grateful.
“I don’t forget [when I was] working in an office or waitressing, so the fact people are coming to see me, and I’m able to work with really funny comedians, is amazing.
“I’m able to just be a clown and have fun all the time. This is my dream job.”
Read more on the Irish Sun
Watch Out Of Order on Comedy Central now.
Katherine’s new show Battleaxe is currently touring the UK – visit Livenation.co.uk.
In the make-up chair with Katherine
Q: What are your skincare heroes?
A: I use a prescription retinol called Differin, and I like Caudalie’s foaming cleanser. I really like Elemis too, because I like that marine smell.
Q: What are your make-up bag essentials?
A: I love Suqqu’s base – it’s my porcelain shade. My lashes are white without mascara – I use high-street brands like Max Factor. I also like Hourglass tinted lip glosses.
Q: Do you have any beauty tips?
A: I don’t like tinting or curling my lashes, as it makes them crispy, so I use RevitaLash, which helps them grow.
Q: Who’s your celebrity beauty icon?
A: Gabbriette Bechtel, who is engaged to Matty Healy. She does her make-up in a unique way.
Q: Describe your beauty evolution.
A: I used to have filler, but now I just have Botox. Filler is a young woman’s game.
