ROSIE JONES | Under Your Skin With Grace Neutral [Episode 05]

The first joke I ever wrote. As you can tell from my voice, I suffer from being Northern. Thank you. Thank you. Let me address the disabled elephant in the room. That's what my mum calls me. Joining me in the studio this episode is writer, actor, and comedian Rosie Jones. Known for her sharp wit and infectious charm, Rosie serves as a role model for individuals with cerebral palsy, advocating for a greater understanding and acceptance for people with disabilities. So how old were you when you got this one? Because this was your first one right? Yeah, that was 2019. Okay. I was 29 and I got it on Pride. Amazing. And that was your first one, right? Yeah, yeah. I woke up on Pride and I thought, I don't want to go to the parade, because being disabled, it's always so busy, it's so intense, and I don't often feel welcome. Even at pride, you don't feel comfortable there because you're disabled? Yeah, too busy. Very busy. Yeah. But do you find that the LGBT community are quite supportive of you being disabled? Or is it something where you found. It's getting better, but there are problems on so many sides. Firstly, accessibility side. There's a lot of gay bars that I can't even get into. Just because they're not accessible. You got here on your own today. You're a very independent woman. Do you know what I'm saying? So why wouldn't it be accessible for you to get into a place like that? Even busy, noisy crowd. Me getting knocked over. Yeah of course. So, Rosie, your comedy is hilarious. When did you realize that comedy was something that you wanted to pursue? Well, technically, I've been doing comedy all my life. Being different, having cerebral palsy meant that people felt sorry for me. And I hated that because I've never felt like a victim or someone that needed to be pitied. So, literally, from being like, four years old, I realized that if I told a joke, people would go, oh, she's ok. She doesn't need me to feel sorry for her. But then when you looked at TV when I was growing up, there was nobody like me. No one disabled doing comedy. So when I got older, I thought, oh, fuck it, I'll be that person. Yeah, you paved the way. Yeah. Good for you, babe. And you've done all sorts, haven't you? You've been on to Fringe festival, you've done TV, you've done all the comedy TV programs. Basically, I'm very greedy. I want it all. And so you should have it all, babe. My mum was really ill about ten years ago. She had cancer. She's okay now. Oh, thank god. Comedy was such a big part of that. Comedy kept our family going during the shit days. Yeah. I was speaking to my friend Jamali, actually, about this. He was in the last interview that I did, and he had a friend who he lost to cancer as well, and he was saying, like, I just took the piss through the whole thing, and that's what she needed me to do. He said, I can be sad later, you know, and I thought that was really beautiful. And it's. Right. It's like, we really need laughter. It's so important. And you recently did a documentary on, was it Channel Four? Channel four, yeah. How was that? Shooting that? There was a lot of confronting stuff in that. Yeah. And it's the first proper thing I did away from comedy. And for a long time, comedy has been my armour. So not to really have that and show that, even though I am a strong, capable, independent woman, sometimes, because of society. And because of my disability, I'm a victim. I had suffered in silence for a long time, because every time I'm on TV, I'll get so much abuse on social media, I should not have to stand that sort of abuse for just being who I am. Exactly. You can't let these people affect your life. Ultimately, just they're very unhappy within themselves, and they're just looking for what they see as an easy target. And, yeah, you can't let it consume you, but it's very easy to let that consume you, because we're all human at the end of the day, people were very strong. You are a very strong, independent woman, like you said, but sometimes things can just get you on the wrong day and it hurts, but good for you for confronting it head on and taking your power back, and also helping educate people on ableism, because I don't think it is talked about. I literally didn't know what Ableism was until I was about 28, even now if you go in the street. People know what racism, sexism, homophobia is, but they don't reason now what abelism is. Trying to get that word out there more. And what would you say to anyone like you who has a disability, or maybe struggling with self confidence, finding their place where they fit? What would you say to them? I mean, it is shit, society is shit, but it's your life. So whatever someone tells you, whether they go, you can't do that. You can't be that. I would say, why not? We sometimes have physical difficulties, but that shouldn't stop us at all. I wake up some days, and I do think it'd be so much easier if I wasn't disabled. Don't look at me and go, oh, she's happy all the time. Because it takes a lot for me to keep on top of my own mental health. Be kind to yourself and, yeah, fuck em all. Yes, exactly. Fuck them all. Fuck them all. Just going back to your documentary, because I know that one of the really confronting things you did in it was you actually met up with a troll, a reformed troll. Yeah. How was that? Because you kept your cool. Yeah. Scary. And I felt very angry. I need to say that they didn't troll me, but they did send death threats to this prolific woman and it was awful. Did I want to get violent? Absolutely. But even meeting them and realising that they did it. Cause they were an alcoholic, they had undiagnosed autism, they were depressed. It made me go, oh, it isn't so simple as they are bad people. When it comes to online abuse and social media, a happy person would never go to that extreme. Yeah. Well hurt people Hurt people, don't they? Yeah. Cause I really wanted to leave it going, oh, great. It's their fault and they're not sorry. Let's blame them. But really, I left thinking they need help. Yeah. And you had empathy for them. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it, how life is not so black and white. Everything is such a grey area, especially, like, trauma, bullying and abuse and things like that. Not making excuses for people who do these things. Cause everyone has to be accountable for their actions. But there's always a backstory, there's always something that happened and we may not perceive it when we see them, you know? Doing that documentary took a tole on my mental health and I did start therapy cause of it. I started therapy, like, three years ago. And honestly, the first few months I was like, hmm. Because I was still battling against myself. But then when it clicked for me how good this was and how valuable the routine of going every week, or every other week, whatever, why didn't I do this, like, ten years ago? I could have saved so much fucked up shit in my twenties. Yeah, Right, my darling. We finished. Oh, my God. I'm just gonna give it a wash. I love it. Product placement. Oh, that did look good. We love a little slow mo foamy reveal. It looks so delicate. Well, it suits you perfectly. Beautiful and delicate, just like you. And then I also have this, which is some really nice aftercare products from Stories & Ink. And then if you want to use a soap to wash it with, I use this one, the foamy reveal you can do at home. Have your own foamy reveal. I'll be foamy revealing baby all over the place Hell yeah. I love it and I wanted it on my arm so I saw it every day.