Jaime French: The Relentless Creative Ownership That Drives Viral Comedic Success

As a part of our series called “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jaime French.

Jaime French is an American comedian, vocalist, and internet personality. Born and raised just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, French learned at an early age that there was humor in everything–even the dark stuff. Gifted a camcorder at the age of 12, Jaime began a life-long pursuit of creating comedy, which has given her a massively successful career creating comedic content. Her work has been featured in the media countless times, most notably on Good Morning America, BuzzFeed, Popsugar, ABC, Allure, Insider and more–garnering millions of views and gaining attention across the globe.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

It’s my pleasure! Thank you for having me. As far as my childhood goes, it was a bit of a rough start. I’ll spare the sob story but in a nutshell we, like most others, had some traumatic events that left us with a single mom who worked a lot. As a kid I felt a bit “weirder” than most. I had a tendency to see things differently and was often ostracized by my peers, but I think it made me stronger in the long run.

By the time high school came around, I had learned to contain my weirdness and act normal enough to have a lot of friends. I played sports, for some reason? That was a bust. Turns out I can’t run…or jump…or do anything physical. Thankfully, I had a lot of other interests. I couldn’t stay away from choir and theatre. So, I would pretend I thought the arts were lame and that I was doing it for an “easy A,” and my friends wouldn’t think I was weird. That was before I knew that weird was cool.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path as a comedian?

My sister and I were often home alone with a video camera I got for my 12th birthday, this resulted in some pretty bizarre but also hilarious home videos. Creating comedy started as an escape, but quickly became an obsession. Everyone who knew me was forced to create funny videos with me. I even went so far as to bring my JVC camcorder to school, hoping to one day make some sort of funny film about my experience in school. But alas, it was never picked up by any major networks.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’ve had a few comedic videos go pretty viral, which is crazy on its own. But to add to the insanity, one of my videos got a comment from David Spade, who is actually a comedian I’ve admired for as long as I can remember. Joe Dirt was everything to me at 12 years old so, while some may have seen it as a small thing, it was a massive deal to me. I’ve considered framing the comment.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’ve made no mistakes. Only happy accidents. Haha, just kidding. I don’t know if this mistake would be considered funny, but it’s a mistake nonetheless–I hate that I waited so long to actually pursue this professionally. I let the opinions of others get to me and make me doubt myself. It was always “what if this isn’t funny enough?” I wish I had understood that it doesn’t matter, you can’t win em’ all. You win a few, you lose a lot, as they say.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Every single person in my life has contributed somehow to my success, even those who mistreated me. But the person who comes to my mind is my husband, Nick. He’s so sure of every decision I make, especially when I second-guess it. He taught me to just “own it,” even if “it” is a flop.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Expect failure, own the failure, make a joke about it, and keep going. Not every single joke will land, not every skit will get views, there WILL be hecklers and people commenting YoU’rE NoT FuNnY LOLOLOL!!!1… But you must trust yourself. Did you laugh when you wrote it? Did your friends laugh? If so, you have something. Executing it perfectly will come with time.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

I’m actually currently working on an album, which isn’t comedy-related I supposed, but hey–it’s all art. In addition to putting out music, I would eventually like to work as an actor in TV or film. Comedy will always be my number one passion. However, one day, it would be nice to only be “the talent” and not the writer, producer, editor, lighting guy, sound guy, script-supervisor, etc.

What do you do to get material to write your jokes? What is that creative process like?

Life experiences help a lot, it seems that everyone gets a kick out of anything relatable. Also, I like impersonating and mimicking. Sometimes I will randomly be mimicking some celebrity’s voice and I’ll think: “Well…That doesn’t sound how I want it to…But it could be a character in my next skit!”

The creative process is ever-present. I am thinking of jokes and skits and scripts, 24/7–inspiration comes from everywhere. I keep notes on my phone and jot down any idea I have. When I have several, I sit down at my computer to write it out. The ideas begin to build upon themselves.

Super. Here is our main question. What are your “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. I wish I had known that the people I would be making fun of might see my work. I review movies and “make fun” of them, sometimes even green-screening myself into certain scenes and rewriting them. I never dreamed some of the actors in these films would see my work, but they do. Thankfully, though, most of them have a sense of humor.
2. Like I said before, I wish I had trusted myself. I wish I had believed I was funny enough to do it professionally sooner. Had I believed in myself, I could have saved myself the misery of being a hair stylist and makeup artist for 10 years. Yikes.
3. I wish I had known that sometimes there’s just no rhyme or reason as to why things flop. A good joke can fail with the wrong crowd, a good video can flop because of the algorithm, but also sometimes what you find hilarious, others may just find weird. And that’s ok.
4. I wish someone would have told me that I would have to do it all. As a comedian, you can get inspiration, but no one can write for you. Otherwise, it’s not really you, is it? Friends and employees can help with small stuff, but when it comes down to delivering the material and performing it–it’s all you, girl. Don’t be lazy!
5. I wish someone would have told me what a dream job this is. I get to do comedy, and though it can be stressful to run my business some days, we spend about 80% of the time laughing. If I had known just how good this gig was, I would have pursued it sooner.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my all-time favorite quotes is “roll with the punches.” Seems simple enough but it’s profound because it works. You will literally get punched in the face by life every day–my depression full-on body slams me every single day. And I roll with the punches, get back up, and keep going.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

At the risk of sounding cynical, the world probably isn’t going to get any better. But I do believe laughter is the best medicine, is timeless and brings people of all walks of life together. If I could find a way to make the whole world laugh, I would.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

150% Jennifer Coolidge. She is one of the most incredible female comedians and I would die to meet her.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

Yes! Type “Jaime French” on pretty much any platform and I’m there pumping out content. It’s not all good but just go into it with low expectations and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Twitter: @jaimepantss

Instagram: @jaime.french

TikTok: @jaimefrench

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!