Finding Founders

Broke, blacklisted, and betrayed by other jealous comedians, Flame Monroe was left struggling to provide for herself and her family. But that was then… now, more than a decade later, Flame is back in the spotlight, appearing on HBO’s ‘Def Comedy Jam’ and the emmy-nominated Netflix comedy series ‘Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready’. As her story above hints , life as a stand up comedian was not always sunshine and roses. Breaking into the 90s comedy circuit is hard enough, but doing it as a black a trans-woman seems near impossible. But Flame’s willingness to consistently show up, be funny, and love herself unabashedly, built a bridge of compassion between her and her audience. Looking back at the comedy scene that often refused to accept her, Flame sees there is still lots of room for change in the era of cancel culture and explosive twitter threads. Yet, she has also forged an incredible path for future comedians, teaching audiences to love her as she learned to love herself at 12 years old.