Tig Notaro Goes Topless in HBO Special

Tig Notaro has been giving audiences an eyeful with her topless performances, and she will be bringing the show, titled Boyish Girl Interrupted, to HBO on August 22.

When it comes to Tig Notaro, however, the view is quite different than what you would expect. Three years ago, on July 30, 2012, she had both of her breasts removed because of cancer. Ta da!

According to Esquire, one of the first times she took her top off on stage after having a double mastectomy was in November of 2014 at New York City’s Town Hall. Why did she do it? She thought it would be funny. What the heck? You’ve had cancer, had your breasts removed, might as well make the best of it and bring it into the routine, right?

And that is exactly what she has been doing from day one. She got on stage just a few days after her diagnosis, recording a live album of all things at Largo Nightclub in L.A., and kicked things off with a bang by saying, “Good evening, hello. I have cancer. How are you?” That night, according to NBC News, she had invited Louis C.K. to the show. He took to Twitter after the performance and praised Tig Notaro.

“In 27 years doing this, I’ve seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.”

How has her audience reacted to her going topless on stage? Well, according to Tig Notaro, it’s been great.

“I’ve had an amazing response, not just from women or cancer survivors, but men who are just like, ‘This is the greatest thing.’ It’s just our bodies. My body is healed and I’m healthy. It’s something to not have taboo around.”

Now, Tig Notaro is someone that can truly be called a survivor. Yes, she had breast cancer. For most people, that would be devastating enough. For Tig, however, bad luck came in threes, when in the span of 4 months she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her mother passed away, and she got a rare intestinal disease, according to the New York Times. But, as the old saying, the show must go on, and it did, and her popularity has skyrocketed since.

And, along with Tig Notaro’s popularity, her schedule is filling up quickly. She will be seen in Amazon’s upcoming net series, Transparency, this fall. She is working on a TV pilot with Louis C.K., and she’s getting married to her partner, Stephanie Allynne. Nothing can slow this lady down, it would appear.

Furthermore, if Tig Notaro intrigues you, you can check out her documentary, Tig, which debuted, according to Huffington Post, at the Sundance Film Festival six months before making its way onto Netflix.

Oh, and it doesn’t end there. Is there a book coming out, you ask? Darn right, there is. And in an interview with Huffington Post, this is how Tig Notaro describes it.

“… the book is really raking through the tiny moments that you can’t possibly get in the documentary or the album. It’s also a lot of information about my childhood and my family and who my mother was and where I am now with life, so it’s all very different. It’s different ways of telling the same story with different levels of depth to them all.”

Tig Notaro, sans breasts, will be baring it all August 22 on HBO in her very first special, Boyish Girl Interrupted, on the network, and it is sure to win her new fans.

[Photo from Getty Images / Rich Polk]