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Greg Behrendt

Greg Behrendt

A frantic punk rocker trapped in a relationship guru's body.

Portrait credit:

Photo: Tyler Ross / CC-BY-2.0

1 special · 1991

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Greg Behrendt moves around the stage like a man trying to outrun his own anxiety. He vibrates with nervous energy, pacing relentlessly and speaking in rapid bursts. When a bit reaches its peak, he throws his whole body into the punchline. He mimes panicked arguments, acts out his joints failing, and collapses into mock exhaustion. He treats the microphone stand like a sparring partner.

Specials

On stage

His career arc is bizarre. He gained massive mainstream fame as a consultant for Sex and the City and co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You. He could have coasted on slick relationship advice forever. Instead, he dismantled that polished persona. Alongside Dave Anthony on the podcast Walking the Room, he traded daytime television for a literal closet, where the two comics spent hours picking apart their own missteps.

On stage, he takes mundane premises—marital squabbles, aging, eating candy—and spins them into frantic meltdowns. He mocks his own desperate attempts to look tough. He will spend ten minutes detailing how a trip to the gym or a run-in with a magician exposed his fragile ego. He plays up the absurdity of getting older when your brain still thinks you belong in a ska band, matching a loud delivery with incredibly low-status admissions.

His standup openly absorbs his fights with cancer, depression, and a stint in rehab. He talks about taking his dog’s medication and hitting rock bottom with the exact same fast, exasperated rhythm he used to use for bad dates, turning bare survival into physical comedy.