After her first Netflix special Quarter-Life Crisis was a huge success on Netflix, Taylor Tomlinson is back today with special number two titled Look At You.
Tomlinson tells ABC Audio that this time around she had a lot more control, though it’s control she probably also had on the first special, but just didn’t realize it.
“I didn’t know I got approval on everything,” she says, explaining how her suggestions would be met with a simple, “great, done.”
In Look At You, Tomlinson uses dark humor to tackle some heavy subjects, including losing her mom to cancer at just eight-years-old. She admits that she and her siblings “all had a dark sense of humor about losing our mom because it’s kind of the only way we could deal with it,” however she did insert a few other jokes to make that part of her special “feel lighter.”
“I do like a Taylor Swift joke in there…I do a joke about having a speech impediment growing up,” she shares. “Those are things that I put into that chunk to make it feel lighter.”
Tomlinson also opens up about her recent bipolar diagnosis, even though initially she didn’t want to.
“Initially…I felt ashamed of it, and then I felt ashamed that I was ashamed. Because I have friends who have bipolar or other mental illnesses and you never judge anybody else for it. But then when it’s you, it’s somehow different,” she expresses.
Tough topics aside, Tomlinson’s goal for Look At You is to make people laugh, but if she can help others struggling with mental health issues along the way, that’s a bonus.
“You don’t have to feel like you’re drowning forever because you’re embarrassed that you need a little help in this way,” she says.
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