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Wanda Sykes Says She Won’t Vet Jokes With Her Family Despite Their Objections

She frames using family stories as part of doing her job and paying the bills.

Overview

  • Sykes said on the Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce podcast that she does not run material by her wife, Alex, or their 16-year-old twins before performing.
  • She recalled her children asking in middle school to stop being mentioned in her act, and she refused with a quip about needing to buy them a car.
  • She distinguishes between formats, allowing her teens to watch her late-night TV spots but not her more mature standup.
  • Alex sometimes tells her after shows if a bit went too far, and Sykes joked about funding a future place in France while clarifying that her stage portrayal of her wife as a smoker is a comic device and not literal.
  • She discussed current parenting boundaries, including preferring professional driving lessons with a passenger-side brake and easing her teens onto private, monitored Instagram accounts.