AIBU to find the comedian Katherine Ryan's turn to the right surprising?

[exceptmeandmymonkey]

I was raised by a single mum and really liked Katherine Ryan's early standup that mostly focused on being a single mum in crap relationships. Several years ago she hooked up with her childhood sweetheart and had several kids with him, and since then her persona has taken quite a turn.

She defended the manosphere participants in Louis Theroux's recent docs, said that she liked Jordan Peterson, and today on social has featured her partner talking about how the moon landing is a conspiracy. Partner is 'not academic' I'll say politely, and MAGA-adjacent. He doesn't work and is a full time dad yet Katherine does the vast majority of childcare (and all of the earning) whilst he golfs. Clearly she got a lot of negative feedback from her (100% women and gay men) audience on her manosphere comments, because she backtracked a bit.

The situation seems like something she would have laughed at years ago, and it's been strange to see her comedy twist to support this, claiming she's always had provocative views.

I don't see any celebs as heroes so this isn't a 'my hero isn't who I expected' just more of a wow, didn't see this twist coming.

Yabu tbh because they're all right wing now

Jimmy Carr and the god awful roisin

Once Jimmy was exposed for his taxes and was able to carry on working, among the 'lefty' crowd 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

The same reason I wont watch The Last Leg, HIGNFY etc

The comedy scene from that era is dead now, time for some younger people

As for Katherine - shes done what a lot of women do, and that's be basic for a man 😄😄

“Doing childcare while your partner does a hobby seems wholly unremarkable to me as well. Am I missing something?”

Yes, yes you are.

Anyone who listens to her podcast regularly knows that she does as much or more parenting than him, in addition to being busy with her job. As far as I can tell he does very little at all and is just a kept man who she (strangely) views as arm candy. Nannies basically take over when Katherine is not there (and often when she is).

She has always been an unfunny dickhead.

“The same reason I wont watch The Last Leg”

Actually I believe Josh W is genuinely left wing. He gave a great speech recently on last leg about how he’s privileged to be able to pay more tax and doesn’t mind doing so.

I feel like the three of them are the very definition of 'centrist dad'

“How do you know he doesn’t work snd what she does around the house ?”

She mentions both on her podcast regularly. He definitely doesn’t work - unless you count appearing on tv with her occasionally as work.

She's been incredibly lucky to have had any career given she's as funny as smallpox. All she has is shock factor so it's predictable she'd resort to right wing bollocks.

I thought her man seems gay as well tbh

She deserves better. I quite like her, I don't see why she didnt just have another baby by donor?! Would probably have been much cheaper than working to keep her man looked after 🙄

I used to find her very funny, very aware and astute.

Since she’s got married and had more children I find her a bit of a bore.

I also think she talks (now) from a place of privilege. It’s very easy to say women should leave their husbands if they cheat or are not in the best relationships. But that’s easy to say when you’re rich, can afford childcare on tap and have a huge house. We’re not all that strong or can afford it.

Do you actually listen to the podcasts?

She didn't wholly defend the manosphere, largely stating that some of them had a point, they just conveyed it in a really bad way (that men have lost the ability to provide for their women, as one example)
I was a bit shocked that she didnt completely condemn it though.

Equally her husband is not necessarily a conspiracy theorist, the convo was around if we managed to land on the moon 50+ years ago with old technology, why is so much fuss being made about us flying passed it now, in the modern day, and that it will play in to the fact that we never actually landed...

I'm really bad at putting things in to words 😂

I love her era of comedians, but then i am fairly right wing anyway

Exactly this.

I am not a fan of holding others to such extreme expectations that must align with someone’s version of being perfectly “left or a far right extremist”.

I think she's twisting herself inside out to keep hold of the husband. She's had a recent facelift and is wearing underwear in public and aligning her views with his. He's absolutely no prize, so I've no idea why she's doing it but she's in a trad-wife journey sadly.

I get very bad vibes about Bobby. When they reconnected she was doing well in her career and he saw a meal ticket.

I think what's unreasonable is to reduce the entirety of political opinion to the notion of which door pre revolutionary France politicians walked through.

It's more omnicause nonsense, the idea that if I know your opinion on say assisted dying, I know your opinion on Israel, it's bizarre and unhelpful and the worst part about tribalism.

If we agreed with one person everything, it would be pretty boring, embrace nuance, great teas, and differences of opinion. It's people not talking in the open that lead, post Brexit, to people saying "I didn't know anyone who voted stay/leave".

Ive found from interviews I’ve seen that she’s judgemental of anyone who parents in a different way to her, and she puts it in such language that makes it sound like everyone else is unreasonable. The elimination communication is one thing, but she was talking about bed sharing with babies and kept putting it in direct contrast with putting a baby in a different room down the hall. I was thinking that’s a lazy straw man argument.

She is just not funny like lots of other alleged "comedians" who have now taken up other occupations

I used to really enjoy her podcasts and liked her content about birth and pregnancy but I've found lately a lot of her stuff gets my back up. Quite a lot of complaining about things on luxury holidays not being quite right, even that a trip was going to be cancelled because of the situation in the Middle East. She does often acknowledge her privilege and that there are people really suffering and her complaints don't really matter but it still grates. She still seems to believe she's pretty grounded and remembers what it's like to struggle financially etc but I think she's getting more and more out of touch. Perhaps that's inevitable when you live that kind of lifestyle.
I also find her attitude towards beauty and aging and cosmetic surgery is at odds with my own values. She talks about the pressures on women and girls to look a certain way and is in theory critical of this but I don't understand how she can fail to see that she's at least complicit in this system. I would say she's actually actively contributing to such pressures, as an influential figure.
Her husband does chat some absolute shit but she often disagrees with him. I suppose you could say she's giving a platform to his conspiracy theory bollocks.
In the end she's free to do and say whatever she likes and she does and goes ahead and she's things which might be seen as controversial. I haven't minded that in the past but I can feel myself just turning off now.
Wouldn't announce this on any of her channels as I think she's just not for me anymore but it's interesting to talk about it here as no-one in my life cares!

This. She's one of those people a colleague of mine describes as "all confidence and no capacity".

Got it. I was going on the information in the OP and hadn't realised I needed to listen to a podcast to comment on the OP! I will not make that mistake again.

I agree on the whole but going from self-proclaimed feminist to saying Andrew Tate makes some good points is really something else.

Anyway I liked her until she slagged off bread a few years ago. Not on.

I agree with MyFunSloth

I think often she is being provocative and she holds back as pp mentioned and when she doesn't she is at her funniest

I am so bored with the mainly white male middle class comedians who love nothing better than to mock those who do not share the same political beliefs especially when directed at working class people, the mocking is far more rooted in class snobbery than their political beliefs. Its just tiresome

I used to love her, saw lots of her shows and enjoyed her podcast but she did seem to change her attitude / personality at some point. I remember her ranting about the NHS and her local gp, and I thought ooh this isn’t hitting right. Maybe a bit tone deaf to complain about the NHS when you’re a rich celeb born in Canada? She’s grated on me ever since and watching her slide more to the right hasn’t been a big surprise.

So your post is really interesting because I partly agree, some comedians do lean into exaggerated personas that aren’t their “real” selves. Richard Ayoade is a good example.

But with KR, everything I know about her comes from what she shares off-stage (podcasts and Instagram) vs stand-up. For example, the anti–birth control stance someone else mentioned above: I heard that directly from her talking about her teenage daughter being advised by a doctor to go on birth control for a health issue, and KR refusing based on fairly science-lite, borderline conspiratorial reasoning. It mimicked a lot of MAHA/crunchy mum/anti-vax content at the time.

That didn’t feel like a constructed persona — it wasn’t especially funny or framed as a joke.

You don’t need to have listened to the podcast, the op states she “does the vast majority of the childcare” but your post said it was ok for her to do a bit whilst he did a hobby.