Stand-up comic Tig Notaro performs on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Aug. 10, 2011
Tig Notaro has called the past six months of her life a “nosedive.” She suffered the loss of her mother, a breakup, a life-threatening bacterial infection and a breast-cancer diagnosis, all in the span of six months. But through her hardships, her career has skyrocketed — especially after her most recent piece of good news.
On her podcast, Professor Blastoff, Notaro announced she is now cancer-free after undergoing a double mastectomy. “I am a very, very excited person that gets to say that I do not have cancer, as far as I know,” she said, adding that her prognosis is “great.”
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The news couldn’t come at a better time for Notaro; she has a new album out on October 5, available for $5, exclusively for download on Louis C.K.’s website. (It will go on sale on various other outlets several weeks later, and part of the proceeds will go to cancer research.) She also said she’ll make her second appearance on the radio show This American Life over the weekend.
Though Notaro has been known on the stand-up circuit for years, her star began to rise this year after she performed her well-known Taylor Dayne routine on This American Life‘s live show, only to be followed by a performance by Dayne herself. Three months later, just hours after her cancer diagnosis, she performed a previously scheduled set at the Los Angeles comedy club Largo, announcing her diagnosis in such an intensely personal manner that it spread like wildfire over social media. The Largo appearance will be included on her upcoming album.
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After the album and the radio appearance, Notaro plans to move to New York to write for a new Comedy Central show starring comic Amy Schumer. She’ll also add “author” to her resume after the Largo appearance led to a book deal. “It was really amazing timing,” she said on Professor Blastoff, “because there was a bit of a bidding war for my book, and the day that was going down I was in surgery. I was completely unconscious and under the knife and publishing companies are submitting bids for my story.”