Whitney Cummings on Howard Stern Show: 'My Self Esteem Took a Big Hit' Doing Sitcom
Yesterday, July 16, comedian and actress Whitney Cummings sat down for an hour-long interview with Howard Stern on his Sirius XM Radio Show. Cummings discussed the pressure of having a TV show and how it affected her. She also talked about why she thinks her NBC sitcom "Whitney" got cancelled.
Cummings admitted to having some trouble with the pressures of having her own TV show.
"You know, I think that my self esteem took a big hit doing a television show. Starring in a TV show, you really begin to hone in on your flaws and begin to see them where they don't exist," the comedienne told Howard Stern.
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Part of the pressure came from having to change her style of comedy for a television audience.
"I am basically a filthy comic from the club and then I went to being judged like an actress or model would be. That was really hard," Cummings explained.
Cummings also succumbed to physical manifestations of the pressure.
"I was very sleep deprived and lost a lot of weight and it was something I wasn't proud of ... I was dying and the second season I started getting sick ... I was sleeping just a couple of hours a night and was getting really bad under-eye bags ... All of a sudden there was all these close door meetings ... and then everyone started dropping hints. The producers pulled me aside and told me that I needed to go to sleep or go home," she told Stern.
However it wasn't all for naught, as Cummings also explained what she learned from the experience.
"I wish that I had known more before getting involved. It was good exposure. I wish I had known that therapy is very important when doing a show and don't look at the monitor," she added.
