How Taylor Tomlinson Went from Squeaky Clean Comic to Late Night’s Newest Host

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Who Is Taylor Tomlinson?

Comedian Taylor Tomlinson is the host of the late-night show After Midnight. At 16, she took her first comedy class then began appearing in church comedy shows. By age 22, Tomlinson was performing stand-up regularly, and her once-straitlaced comedy had become edgier. After appearing on Last Comic Standing in 2015, she earned a spot on Conan with Conan O’Brien. Tomlinson made her stand-up debut on Netflix in 2018 during a 15-minute set on The Comedy Lineup and has since had three comedy specials on the streaming service. With After Midnight’s January 2024 debut, Tomlinson is the only woman currently hosting a late-night program.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Taylor Elyse Tomlinson
BORN: November 4, 1993
BIRTHPLACE: Orange County, California
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio

Early Life

Taylor Elyse Tomlinson was born on November 4, 1993, in Orange County, California, to parents Angela Tomlinson, a stay-at-home mom, and Eric Tomlinson, a teacher. Taylor has three younger siblings: Drea, Page, and Brinn. Her mom died of cancer when Taylor was just 8 years old. Her father later remarried.

Taylor grew up in Temecula, California, in a conservative Christian household. She realized early on that she had a gift for comedy. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Tomlinson shared: “My grandma recently told me I was unintentionally funny when I was little. Apparently I cracked up my family.”

Tomlinson took her first comedy class with family-friendly comedian Nazareth at age 16 and began doing comedy shows at churches. At Temecula Valley High School, she studied drama. Tomlinson graduated high school in 2011, then attended California Polytechnic State University for one semester before transferring to Palomar College. After three years of college, she decided to drop out. But her college days offered her the opportunity to perform stand-up more regularly. Bigger stages were soon calling.

Comedy Career: After Midnight and More

Tomlinson’s religious upbringing shaped her early comedy. “For the first, like, six years—the first half of my career so far—I was squeakyclean,” she told E! News. But by age 22, Tomlinson had switched up her material to less church-friendly content that no longer felt authentic to her. She told E! News, “It was hard to get to that place and accept that not everybody was going to love that,” adding that she had to “get over my own internalized guilt and shame about not being, like, a good Christian. Not being Christian at all, really.”

After leaving college, she landed a gig on Last Comic Standing followed by an appearance on Conan, Conan O’Brien’s late-night show on TBS, when she was 23. That led to a network development deal with ABC Studios for a sitcom, which never made it to air. In 2018, she debuted her comedy on Netflix during a 15-minute set on The Comedy Lineup, a stand-up comedy showcase series that had two seasons on the streaming platform.

Netflix Comedy Specials

To date, Tomlinson has released three comedy specials on Netflix. Her first, titled Quarter-Life Crisis, arrived in 2020. Next came Look At You, which premiered in 2022. Her second special was the first time Tomlinson publicly discussed her experience with bipolar disorder. “I had all this shame because when I was a kid, my parents were like, ‘You don’t get on medication. That’s weak. That’s not good for you,’” Tomlinson told E! News. “So I think I felt weak for needing that.”

Over the years, she has chosen to become more transparent about her bipolar disorder on stage. “I’m a personal comedian, and I talk about what’s going on in my life, and that’s what was going on in my life,” Tomlinson told People. “At first I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to share this.’ And then I’m on the road, and I’m like, ‘Nah, maybe I’ll just try one joke about it.’ And then that works, and you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I do have more to say about it.’”

Tomlinson’s newest special on the streaming platform is Have It All. It released in February 2024. Her current deal with Netflix includes a fourth show, though details about its scheduled release aren’t yet available.

After Midnight

At age 30, Tomlinson became the host of After Midnight on CBS in January 2024. The show is a reboot of Comedy Central’s show @midnight. She is one of the youngest hosts in late-night and currently the only woman hosting a late-night show. Previous female hosts include Joan Rivers, Chelsea Handler, Lilly Singh, Ziwe, Amber Ruffin, and Samantha Bee.

Tomlinson’s After Midnight replaced James Corden’s The Late Late Show and follows The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the 12:37 a.m. spot.

“I could not have done [After Midnight] four years ago. Even three years ago,” she told Glamour. “What’s so interesting is when it came up, I was like, ‘Oh I think I’m at a place in my life where I actually could do that job, and I could do it well and I could enjoy it.’”

Ex-Fiancé Sam Morril

Tomlinson was previously engaged to comedian Sam Morril in 2020. Tomlinson told People she didn’t know who made the first move. “It just kind of happened. We just sort of became friends, and it was very organic,” she said. “He had sent me some nice messages about sets I had done on television, and I never got any ‘sliding into your DMs vibes’. Just very nice and respectful.”

However, the couple is no longer together. In her 2024 Netflix comedy special Have It All, she announced that she had been single for a year.

Quotes

• When I was younger, I was so terrified that people hated me or thought this or that. And now I know, I really can’t control what anybody thinks, and if people don’t like me, I get that. I could argue that side. I feel the most empathetic I’ve ever felt at 30. I can kind of see everything from everyone’s perspective.

• I’ve gotten to a place in my career that I thought I might get to by the time I was 40. I’ve been really, really lucky.

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