Amy Schumer landed between $8 million and $10 million for her new collection of essays, “The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo,” released on Tuesday. Any pricey book deal comes with high expectations — and the comedian-turned-actress revealed all, from her dysfunctional childhood to some deeply personal, traumatic experiences.
On the lighter side, she also answered some questions that you may have wondered (or read about) as she has rocketed from an unknown stand-up comic to movie star in only a few short years. Here are just a few:
Is she anything like the “sex comic” persona she portrays onstage?
Not at all. “I’m so sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks I walk around at all times with a margarita in one hand and a dildo in the other,” Schumer writes at the beginning of the book. “Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that onstage, I group together all my wildest, worst sexual memories — which is a grand total of about five experiences over the course of thirty-five years.”
In fact, she’s actually an introvert. As she writes, someone hearing that would likely not believe it: “You’re not shy, you’re a loud, boozy animal!” But Schumer goes on to explain that introverts simply need a lot of alone time to recharge from hanging out with other people. As a result, she finds parties challenging. “Usually I will find a corner to hide in and immediately begin haunting it like the girl from ‘The Ring,’ hoping no one will want to come talk to me,” she writes.
Did she really leave a $1,000 tip for a “Hamilton” bartender?
Schumer describes many of the perks of being newly famous, from private jets to being able to text Chris Rock and ask him to direct your HBO stand-up special. Plus, there’s the money: She writes that she gave most of her “Inside Amy Schumer” Season 4 salary to her staff, and donated her “Thank You For Your Service” paycheck to military families.
And yes, she really did tip $1,000 on a $77 bill at the bar when she saw “Hamilton” — and was surprised when the news went viral.
Is there anything she won’t say on her show?
Schumer doesn’t really have any boundaries about what she’ll share. But it turns out she once cut a segment from “Inside Amy Schumer” that involved an awful professional matchmaker who told Schumer that she was still single because she told so many sex jokes, and set her up on a horrible blind date.
“It was the most disturbing ‘Amy Goes Deep’ scene I’ve ever taped. Keep in mind I’ve talked to a climate change denier, a pickup artist and a diagnosed sociopath. But this woman left the darkest cloud over me. It still makes me feel angry and demoralized,” Schumer writes. “Hearing a dating ‘expert’ inform me why I’m not attractive to men, and then having to put myself out there to meet a man she selected who might actually be interested in me, was very scary.”
What was up with that Men’s Health editor’s note?
If you ever read Schumer’s 2012 essay in Men’s Health, you might notice that there’s a lengthy editor’s note about why they swapped a graphic treatment for a photo of Schumer herself, and noted the comedian was “upset we didn’t use a photo of her.” Schumer devotes a whole chapter to the incident, talking about what it was like when she saw the magazine used three pictures of young models next to her essay. “I could just hear them saying, ‘Schumer’s a very fun girl. Bright, with a face for podcasting.'” She prints an awkward email exchange with a defensive editor (who says they don’t use photos of any celebrity authors) and ends the chapter with a challenge to magazines to rethink how those decisions come across to women.
Did she really meet her boyfriend on a dating app?
Indeed. Earlier this year, E! reported that Schumer met her new boyfriend Ben Hanisch (a furniture designer) on Bumble, a dating app where women make the first contact. Schumer denied this in no uncertain terms, but revealed in her book she actually did meet him on an app — just not that one. She didn’t reveal the name, but hinted that it’s an app that lots of celebrities use, and she and “Trainwreck” co-star Vanessa Bayer signed up together.
