Druski: They're Lying To You About Overnight Success! | The Diary Of A CEO Transcript

Druski (Drew Desbordes) discusses his turbulent childhood, path to comedy, and rise to success with Steven Bartlett

Steven Bartlett interviews comedian and content creator Druski (Drew Desbordes) on The Diary of a CEO.

Summary

Druski — whose real name is Drew Desbordes — traces his journey from a difficult childhood in suburban Atlanta to becoming one of the most recognisable comedic voices of his generation. Druski describes growing up in a household marked by his father's physical discipline and his mother's stabilising influence, and how comedy became a coping mechanism for both himself and his brother, who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He recounts dropping out of college, falling into illegal activity, surviving an armed robbery, and making a commitment to comedy from his mother's living room floor with no mattress and a repossessed car.

A memorable highlight of the episode is a surprise video message from Steve Harvey — one of Druski's childhood idols — which visibly moves Druski and represents a clear full-circle moment.

The conversation covers the pivotal moment Drake cast him in the "Laugh Now Cry Later" music video, his repeated rejections from Netflix, Amazon, and FX, and his decision to self-fund his own productions rather than wait for a green light. Druski also discusses a viral sketch that reportedly prompted Donald Trump to suggest someone should be sued, though Druski says he genuinely does not know whether the comment was directed at him. His upcoming projects include Collect and Praise — a semi-scripted comedic Netflix and YouTube show about mega pastors, co-starring Mike Epps — as well as a film called The Catch alongside Emma Stone and Chris Pine, due in May 2027.

Key Takeaways

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Early Childhood and Family Context

Steven Bartlett: Druski, I really believe that to understand somebody who is an anomaly — and you very much are an anomaly — you first have to understand their earliest context. I went through all of these old photos of you as a young boy to try and build some of that context in my own head. What is it that most people might not know about that earliest context that's most informative to who you are today?

Druski: I still literally feel like this little boy in all these pictures. It's like I see these moments and it reminds me of how free I was able to be as a kid. I wanted to be so much. My mom and my grandparents always supported me being open and free.

Steven Bartlett: What is that right there?

Druski: That was my dad and my brother right here for sure. Even looking at these pictures, I had no idea around this time who I was going to become. This is dope. How did you get these pictures? Did my mom send you these?

Steven Bartlett: I was looking through some of the videos that your parents recorded of you at that time.

Druski: It's hard. That's me in character right there. That's literally in character. So she would put on these camcorders to let me be free. That was like my outlet to be able to do these characters and be myself. There's one of me in a diaper rapping. That's another crazy one.

Those are the moments, you know. We used to put on these performances for my family and I'm just grateful that we were able to be ourselves and I was able to be supported somewhere, because you do get confused in these settings.

Steven Bartlett: I've interviewed a lot of comedians and one of the things I tend to find is that comedy is some sort of tool. When I spoke to Jimmy Carr and some of the other comedians I've interviewed, they're always able to understand in that early context how they were using that tool to solve a problem. I remember Jimmy saying to me, "You often think of comedians as being depressed, but actually for him it was a case of comedy being a way to help his mom who was depressed — it was how he saw her smile." Was comedy for you at that age a tool?

Druski: Very much so. I speak about my dad because he was one of those tough guys to deal with around that time. He wanted us to figure it out early. My dad was the lead person pushing that narrative. My mom would somewhat do it too, but she would always try to tell him to relax. At the time I'm like eight, nine years old, and my dad was like, "What do you want to do? Figure it out. You're either going to go to jail, find a craft, end up in a warehouse, or go to the military and get your ass blown off." Those were the only three options.

Steven Bartlett: He said, "Get your ass blown off."

Druski: Yes. So imagine me at like eight, nine years old — those are my three options. Find a trade, or go to the military and get your ass blown off, because we're going back to war. He was always talking about we're going back to war. And I'm like, what the hell? Are we going to war? So early on, he pushed that he wanted me to figure it out. He had great lessons, but his teaching skills were very tough and physical. He's old school. He has a short temper. He used to ask these rhetorical questions all the time. He'd be like, "Go get me a Phillips screwdriver," and I'd go get a regular screwdriver. He's like, "This is not a Phillips screwdriver." Bam — upside the head. Then my brother goes and gets a hammer, the dumbest thing, and he would come back and bam — upside the head. That was the immediate style of teaching. It's not the best way of teaching.

From an early age, speaking to other people's fathers and parents, I learned that this is not a normal thing. I didn't know that until we would go to like neighbourhood parties and my dad would be like, "Oh, these my boys right here." He'd reach out his hand and we'd flinch, because it had become a normal thing for him to always lift up his hand if we said the wrong thing. So I wouldn't say that my comedy necessarily came from that, but it definitely came from a place of healing — wanting to make our situation better at home.

We weren't a broke home. We were a broken home, but we weren't a broke home. My dad was an airline pilot for United Airlines for my entire younger life. My mom worked for the CDC. Two good jobs. My mom was always home. My dad would travel in and out. But I think what I wanted to do — my personality as a kid — was always to make the family smile, no matter through all this stuff we were going through. These teachings sometimes went too far. Some of those ass whippings went too far. I'm not going to get into details, but we had some that went too far.

I feel like my comedy comes from that place. I never tend to punch down. I like to find the funny, but also the good side of funny, and not look at the negative. I can find a negative situation and bring the funny out of it for both sides — me and the other person.

Hypervigilance, Observation, and His Brother's Diagnosis

Steven Bartlett: As a child, very perceptive children — you're on edge a little bit. And I remember sitting with Gabor Maté and him telling me how kids that have an early context where they have to be a little more aware often become very good at observation. They become good therapists. They become the most empathetic. They also sometimes have struggles with mental health because being hypervigilant comes at a cost. It's not free. Does any of that resonate?

Druski: 100%, man. And I think sadly in my brother's case, that went in a negative direction. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as we continued to go through puberty and got older. Whereas for me, I feel like I might have found a coping mechanism with comedy, and maybe he never found that coping mechanism from that trauma. I feel like trauma can sometimes give you the good route or the negative route. A lot of what was going on in our house early on may have played a role in him being diagnosed with that. That's the sad side of the story.

Even with him — I think early on I would always try to make him laugh because I knew we were in a messed up situation. One time I watched my brother get beat for wetting the bed, and it was the simplest thing. I couldn't understand. It was very far beyond the normal belt type thing. So I would always try to step in either after or during these moments to be like a coping mechanism for him. Or maybe it's my mom and he's arguing with her and they're getting physical as well. So I would always try to be the funny guy — maybe at dinner after, or the next day, trying to lift everybody's vibe up.

Steven Bartlett: You watched your mother get hit as well?

Druski: For sure. Not physically hit, but I've seen different things — the choking, pushing her out the door and then locking it, and then I've got to go and be the one staring at her at the door and she's like, "Open it." And he's like, "You better not open that door." And I'm in between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out, do I open this door for my mom or is he going to come? It was a lot of different situations of trying to figure it out at a very young age, and it started so young that some things are kind of blurry for me.

But I do know that my comedy comes from that comforting type of space. I can read a room and sense any type of danger. I can read a room and sense happiness, sadness, anything in any situation. Somebody could be mentally ill, somebody could be physically hurt — anything. And I've always been a good judge of character. I feel like that has helped me in my career for sure.

Steven Bartlett: Part of the reason I noticed this — I've sat here doing these interviews maybe 700 times or something — and you're one of the first people to stop mid-conversation as you were speaking and say, "You look like you had something to say there, Steve." Because you were looking at my face.

Druski: Yeah, I can read. People don't usually do that.

Steven Bartlett: Some people are just talking and giving their answers to my questions. And then there's this other very rare group of people — often comedians — who I almost feel like I'm speaking to even when I'm just sat here thinking, because they're hyper aware. You just did that to me. So I thought, he is super, super aware. Which kind of correlates to everything you were saying there.

Druski: For sure. For sure.

Steven Bartlett: But it always comes at a cost.

Druski: Yes, I agree.

Steven Bartlett: All gifts do. I sat with Michael Jordan's trainer — who also trained Kobe — and he said to me, "Our dark sides are linked to our light sides." The things people clap for are inherently linked to the things we then struggle with. That's true for yourself, I'm presuming.

Druski: Very true. And I think through life I've learned that not all teachers have the best way of teaching. His lessons — he had many that were really good and on the positive side of life. I eventually had to come to a place where I told myself, I cannot look for more success and look for the light at the end of the tunnel without forgiving everything in my past. That came with having to forgive my father — in my head and also to him face to face. Just let it all go. And I think that helped me continue to move forward and not have any grudges. Grudges can really hold a lot of weight on you.

Maybe his mother was abusive to him, or his upbringing was in northeast DC — a very traumatic neighbourhood. He's from the project buildings of that. But yeah, the lessons he had were very good. He always talked about not half-assing anything. If you're going to do something, do it all the way. If you're going to mop the floor, do the whole floor. If you're going to clean the dishes, do all the dishes. But his lessons would be over the top. He's going to break the dishes if you do it wrong. He's going to throw it up in the air and watch it crash on the ground and then he's yelling at the top of his voice.

People talk about, "How can I be broken if I've already been broken at an early age?" And I kind of feel that way. People say, "Oh, it's not too much of a burden on you in your career." I'm like, how could I be broken if I feel like I've already gone to my furthest extent? I can only continue to push myself to higher levels because I feel like I've gone through everything that could be the worst possible situation, at least in my brain.

He had very good lessons and always had quotes and sayings. It only takes one to negate ten attaboys. I still to this day get confused by that. But I understood it as life went on and I started to notice a lot of my friends that I grew up with were going to jail or falsely being accused of things or ended up dead or shot in the streets. We seen a lot of that stuff because I come from a neighbourhood that's a suburb, but it also had a mixture of the real Atlanta in there as well.

As I continued to grow in life, every single lesson that he had taught me started to come back to me in my later years. And I began to grow an appreciation for it after I forgave him for all the past trauma.

Steven Bartlett: When you say forgive — do you have a good relationship with him now?

Druski: Yes. Very, very good. For sure. In anything in life, you have to move on and continue to push. You can never grow to do great things without looking back and being like, "Okay, I have to close the door on this. I cannot hold this grudge." Because if you hold a grudge, you've got to think about what a grudge is. A grudge is a burden on you. It's not just physical. It's a mental thing that can really rot people's brains out. A lot of people think of forgiveness as letting them win, or they feel like a loser because they're not going to forgive. But you're not helping yourself. That has nothing to do with them or what they did. If you hold on to that, that's a forever thing for you.

Relationships and Emotional Avoidance

Steven Bartlett: One of the things that great resilience will give you — and you talked about it there, you said, "How can anything break me when I've already been broken to the fullest extent?" Again, with that comes a set of issues you contend with as an adult. I experienced it myself. If my parents weren't loving toward each other, one of the lessons I inherited was that relationships look like this — and this isn't necessarily a great thing. So I swerved relationships at every opportunity. I'd pursue people and then the minute they turned to me and said, "Do you want to be in a relationship?" I was like, "Too much." I've seen this before. I know where this goes. Have you experienced that yourself?

Druski: Yes. I feel like I continuously have grown a relationship with women in a way where I almost get scared with getting too close — kind of like how you explain — because maybe I haven't seen a successful home of two parents in a relationship. Maybe I haven't seen it with my own two eyes work. And I feel like that does hinder me a little bit, because it comes in between when I feel these feelings for a girl and I almost jump back immediately as soon as they're like, "No, no, I don't trust it because I know what this comes with." And they're like, "What do you mean? We didn't even get a chance to fully—" I don't know. It's a natural mind thing that happens to me and I still to this day have no idea why. I feel like that has something to do with it. Maybe I haven't seen it in a way that's healthy, and that might be the reason why. But that's a question I need answered.

Steven Bartlett: If I spoke to someone that you were in a relationship with and I said to them, "Is Drew affectionate?" — you're laughing. You know the answer.

Druski: No, no. I feel like they would tell you that I am — until I'm not. I eventually just pull back. Once I get too close, I can't trust it. It's almost like a magnet when you reverse it on the other side. When it comes too close, it starts to repel itself. That's how I feel when I get more and more closer with a woman.

Steven Bartlett: That makes sense. I think that's what I experienced up until I was about 27 years old.

Druski: I'm 31 and still experiencing it.

Steven Bartlett: Does it matter increasingly as you become more successful? Do you think more about it as you go?

Druski: It's just hard to trust after you become successful. When you're kind of successful at the beginning, it's not hard to trust. You're like, "She likes me for me, but she can also like me for this celebrity I am." Kind of 50/50. But as you become more and more successful, you have this doubt in your mind — this could absolutely be her in love with just Druski and not Drew at all.

Steven Bartlett: Is that just a convenient excuse for the whole avoidant thing?

Druski: No, no, I'm serious. I promise. It's a question in every superstar's mind. I guarantee you even when they are with somebody fully, they still have a question in the back of their mind — does this person just love the superstar version of me? You see all these people screaming and chasing you. You have a show or a meet and greet and you see how people react to you. And you almost want to believe that this person you're dating is genuine — like, okay, maybe she just loves me for me. But it's hard to believe after you see all of this. You only know me for that. You didn't meet me when I was just at home living with my mom, broke on the sofa. You didn't see the real side of who I actually am.

Dropping Out of College and the Epiphany

Steven Bartlett: So you go off to college. You lasted — was it two semesters before you dropped out?

Druski: I started at a school in Gwinnett County where I grew up. I spent like a year and then another half a semester there and got enough credits to transfer. I was like, "Okay, I've got to get out of here. I know my life is bigger than this." At the time I wasn't thinking, "Oh, I want to be a superstar." I just wanted a real college experience. I wanted to go to a four-year college. I didn't have the grades to go straight there from high school, so I wanted to find a way to do it through college. When I went to Georgia Southern, I just wanted to find the college ecosystem — what's the vibe here? And I didn't find that as soon as I got there. It's almost like I didn't get the immediate "this is college" feeling I thought I would get.

I went into a deep depression because I had two guys I knew from my county who went to the school. I was like, "Oh okay, I'll link up with them." But for some reason it was always a hassle. They would always be like, "Oh, we always got to pick you up. You don't have a car." Or, "If you don't have any money to get into the game, there's no point in coming because we can't pay for you." Or, "You have the same shoes you hoop in — why would we bring you?" They always had jokes about me, and I felt like I wasn't deserving enough to be around them. And for the first time in my life, I felt very depressed.

I stopped going to classes for like the whole second semester at that school. No classes. I just sat in my room and would sit and think. I'm calling my friends back at home — they're not doing anything. So I kind of didn't want to go home because I'm like, "Damn, they're not doing anything, but I'm not doing anything here either. What is my purpose in life?"

Sitting in there, being depressed and sad, looking at myself in the mirror, I started to figure out — what do I really want to do in life? I was there for sports journalism, but I only took that to maybe become an ESPN sportscaster just to get my face on TV. I didn't really know. As I continued to do more soul-searching, just sitting in the room and thinking, I would watch Steve Harvey interviews on YouTube — about taking a risk, jumping, taking a leap of faith. I would watch everything about people I looked up to — Kevin Hart and others. And I started to figure out, okay, what's my purpose? These are the people I look up to, but what exactly do I want to do?

As I continued to search, I started to figure out that all the people I look up to are comedic legends. I'm watching Will Ferrell stuff, Chris Farley — these are guys I find as my heroes. I've always been the funny guy in every classroom, everything I've done. I got kicked off the football team for being funny. All this stuff is because I am a comedian. And it was almost like I felt like an idiot, because I'm sitting over here in college and that is my purpose. This is it. I feel more connected to them than I've ever felt connected to anything in my life.

Steven Bartlett: Why?

Druski: The things they would say in a Kevin Hart interview, the things Steve Harvey would say, the things Will Ferrell or Chris Farley or Jim Carrey would say — I felt more attached to it because they also felt a need and a purpose to become like a hero of comedy. It sounds dumb because when you tell your parents, "Oh, I want to be a comedian," they're like, "Oh, you're basically a clown, I guess, and you'll go start doing standup rooms and maybe you make it, maybe you don't." It sounds kind of silly telling people or your hometown friends, "I'm going to be a comedian." But as I continued to do more and more research, I started to figure out — this is my purpose. And it always has been. And I see these videos of me as a kid. I'm remembering memories of all this stuff early on. This is it. And that's when I had like an epiphany.

Steven Bartlett: When you say you were depressed — that word can mean lots of things to lots of people. What does it mean in your definition in that moment? If I was a fly on the wall, inside your head at that time, what would I hear and what would I see?

Druski: I think you would just see me in there confused, man. I would sit in my room for hours. I would play 2K. I would play music for hours and not really do anything. I had no friends at that school. I would walk to the corner store. My mom would send me like $20. I'd buy as much as I could to stay in the room and not go out and socialise with all these people at this huge school. I would get as much food as I could and go back and just be in the room. And that's when I knew I was like, "Yo, I'm really in a state I've never been in in my life."

Imagine — I'm used to being at a high school where I was known as the class clown. Anybody in my family knows me as the guy that brings the warmth to the room, makes everybody laugh, always bringing good energy. And now I'm sitting here almost hiding away from society, very dark on myself. I'm very hard on myself about everything I want to do. It took a while for me to understand what it was.

I think going on YouTube and researching successful people, I started to line up the people I found inspiring and every single one of them were comedians. I felt more attached to every single one of them than I've ever felt attached to anybody else in my life.

Steven Bartlett: It's funny because through your childhood you were a comedian — clearly from all the videos I've seen. People think of comedians as giving — you make us laugh. But obviously you get something from that too. And then suddenly you're in this room and you're no longer getting that thing. What is that thing?

Druski: I knew that was a thing early on when I was a kid. I would have these conversations with myself after elementary school — did I make the class laugh today? And why does that feel so good to brag about? I would ask other students, "Who's the funniest in this class? Who's the funniest in our grade?" And I would really ask. I was like, "Why do you feel like he's funny? Why is Mikey funnier than me? Tell me why." It was almost like a competition in my head that nobody knew about. I felt like it meant something if they told me, "Oh, you're of course the funniest guy in our grade."

Steven Bartlett: And how would that make you feel?

Druski: That made me feel successful. It felt like I won the Mark Twain Award of the school. Like that is the Oscar for me at a young age if somebody told me, "Oh my god, you're the funniest at the school."

Steven Bartlett: It's interesting — your nature was clearly comedian, but that's not a career that kids are taught about. Until you're given a word for it sometimes, you don't have that epiphany. I thought about that with being an entrepreneur. I didn't know it was a thing until I was 19 and I was already doing it, and then I heard the word and someone gave it meaning. I was like, "Oh, that's a thing you can do as a job." And then suddenly — mind expansion.

Druski: You know what it was? I always knew that comedy was a thing. I didn't know that I wanted to do it as badly as I did. I was always watching it. My mom would show us In Living Color, movies like What About Bob? early on. My dad would always have the Chappelle's Show on and I would try to sneak and watch that because it was very much rated R. I would still try to sneak behind the stairs and look — "Oh my god, that's so funny." And I would try to say these jokes back at school that I heard Dave Chappelle saying.

But the fact of the matter is that it was always in front of me and I was always a big fan of comedy. My mom was always putting this stuff in front of us because she wanted the best for us. She was almost like the seesaw to level everything out. If something bad happened with my dad, my mom was always there to level it out. She was the one that would come in and tell him, "David, that's too much." And sometimes he would bark at her and be like, "Get out of here. These boys are going to end up being men. They need to learn this now." But she always had good things she would always say, like, "Just continue to believe in yourself." So my mom was always a big believer in anything becoming big. I've got to give her a lot for that.

Steve Harvey's Message and Dropping Out

Steven Bartlett: So you went off to university, you discovered these great comedians. Steve Harvey — one of the kings of comedy, one of your idols. What was it that he said in particular that you recall that really pushed you forward in that moment?

Druski: I remember he had a video that talked about just taking a risk and just jumping. He spoke on just taking the leap of faith and just jump. Stop overthinking everything. Nothing happens without taking this risk. He continued to say something in these videos — if you believe there's something more to your life, there is. If you have that vision that keeps popping up in your head, that means it very much so is in your life. I just kept hearing him say that. I played the video back. Played it back again. I'm like, "Damn, what the hell? That means there is something." Because I kept feeling that feeling. I kept thinking, there's more to my life than what it is right now. And I knew it in the back of my head. I know it. I know it. There's more to this than what I feel. And that's what resonated with me from the video I watched of him. It was life-changing.

Steven Bartlett: I speak to Steve.

Druski: Oh man. What are you about to show me, man?

Steven Bartlett: He wanted to send you a little video message.

Steve Harvey: "Hey, what's happening, Druski? Hey, look, man. I heard they was doing something for you. So I wanted to jump on here, man, and just give you some big ups. Let you know, man — I've been watching you for a while from a distance. We've only spoken once, but look, man, I think you're special. You got a gift, man. You're really, really special. And with that specialness, man, come responsibility. So just be careful, man. Remember everything your mom and your grandmama told you, because you going to need all of that. You killing the game. But once you start killing the game, it's like chess, man. We're out here playing chess. The object is to kill the king. Sad, but true. Keep your faith, brother. Stay funny, man. If you need me, call Unk. I got you."

Druski: This is crazy. That is nuts, bro. That is amazing, man. And that really is a full circle moment even hearing him say that. Wow, man. Somebody that I definitely looked up to amongst the other kings of comedy — wow, man. That's deep. That's deep.

Steven Bartlett: What happens from there? You go from being in that room, you're watching these Steve Harvey videos — presumably you've got to call your mom and tell her you're dropping out.

Druski: She wasn't happy about that. She cried. She hung up on me. She was like, "This is just so dumb. What are you talking about?"

Steven Bartlett: What did you say?

Druski: I couldn't get any words out. She hung up. I remember seeing her crying on the FaceTime after I just wanted to tell her what my vision was. Because you say "I'm dropping out" — but then of course I have a rebuttal. I have a great idea. And she hung up immediately. So then I called my friend. He came and grabbed me from the school in the middle of the night. I was like four hours away from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm deep down in southern Georgia. We drove all the way back. When I got there, of course she let me in the house. It was just a confusing time because I'm also not making any money. She's like, "Now what? Like, now what are you going to do?"

And I had this big plan and I told her what I was going to do. I'm like, "I'm going to be a comedian. I'm going to be on TV. I promise you in a year I'm going to make sure I'm on TV. And if I'm not—" I told her this wild story — I said if I don't become a famous comedian on TV, I'm going to kill myself. And she's like, "Don't say stuff like that. That is so dumb. I want you to go hard for whatever you're doing, but why do you feel like it has to be comedy?" And I continued to break down everything. I'm like, "This is what I've always wanted to be." It's almost like you have this great idea but nobody sees the vision.

So then I went to my grandparents. I told them the same vision. They lived down the street from her. And they were like, "What are you talking about? Go back to school, get your education, and then you do all that other stuff." Because they had the old school mindset — they'd probably seen people that didn't go to school become failures. They never really saw the good side of what I was describing. And I was like the 0.1% of people — maybe even less — that are able to accomplish that after dropping out. So immediately when I told my grandparents, they were like, "Oh no, no, no. We know what's going to happen. You're going to drop out. You're going to be calling us asking for money. Don't be calling our house. You're going to be doing drugs." And I'm like, "Listen, I have a plan."

Falling Into Illegal Activity and the Armed Robbery

Druski: Essentially, I didn't do it immediately. I started trying to work at Red Lobster, then Longhorn, then Outback Steakhouse, and McDonald's. I started to work jobs because it was quick money. And then I fell victim to living in Atlanta where I was doing illegal stuff, and now I'm seeing myself go into this whirlwind of — damn, I came home to do this.

Steven Bartlett: Drug dealing?

Druski: No. In Atlanta there's like a scamming circle where a lot of people fall victim to. You can do quick easy scams with banks or card scams, just stuff like that. I never was a bad guy. I just felt like that was an easier way to do it while I'm trying to pursue this stuff. But I felt like the karma of this stuff was weighing on me. I was going back and forth, just flirting with the idea of comedy. And then it was the moment that we got arm robbed where I had an out-of-body feeling of — wow, I came home to be in this predicament where I have a gun to my head now. How did I even get here?

That was the last moment I said, "Okay, if I'm going to do anything, I'm going to become a comedian or die trying." That's it. I have no other outlet. Once I saw the barrel of that gun being pointed at me and my friend — it was a bad scamming situation gone left — that was the moment I noticed: if I survive this, I am going to turn my life around. I'm not going to go to a job. I'm not going to go back to my mom's house and say, "Oh, I'm doing this, that." I'm going to lock in and actually do it.

From there on, I went home. I wrote all these goals down on a sheet of paper. My mom had heard what happened — she saw me walking around the house being stressed out. I told her what was going on. And I wrote down all these goals because she would always say, "You can't do anything without writing things down." Ever since I was a kid she was like, "Write it down. If you want to remember something, write it down."

Steven Bartlett: Do you remember what the goals were?

Druski: The first one I ever wrote was: don't have a plan B, your plan A will work. The second one was about hosting a tour. Hosting an awards evening. Being a comedian. Starring in a major movie. All of that is down there, man.

Steven Bartlett: And you were 23 at the time roughly?

Druski: Yes, 23.

Steven Bartlett: So you left college at what age?

Druski: I left college around 21, 22. In between 21 and 22, I left college.

Steven Bartlett: So it's a year or two at home with your mom?

Druski: A year and a half. I'll probably say a full year at home before all that transpired. I tried the jobs, tried the legal stuff, that didn't work. And now I'm here and I start to actually do the things I wrote down.

Building from Nothing — The Early Grind

Steven Bartlett: What does that mean specifically?

Druski: I think the first thing that happened after I wrote these goals down — everything was taken away. It felt like everything dropped out before it got good. I wrote down these goals, I wrote the date on there. I'm doing it. I'm all in. I have no other option. There's no plan B, nothing. Immediately my car gets repossessed. I'm like, "Yo, what the hell? Now I can't travel and do nothing."

It's funny because it's like as soon as you want to pursue all these things, everything has to come out. And it's confusing because most people never get a chance to see the real side of success because they quit at that moment — that breaking point of everything falling out of your life. They're like, "Oh my god, I done prayed for all this stuff, I done wrote everything down, I got this mood board, I got everything." And then they lose this and say, "Oh, see, it don't work." But I knew — I'm going to keep going. I'm not going to stop here.

I actually made that like a content piece. I recorded my car getting repossessed and people were like, "Yo, what the hell are you posting this for?" I was like, "Well, there it is. There she goes." But really, I was sad as hell. I was like, "Damn, I got nothing." But I feared nothing because I have nothing left. I'm sitting here in a room, no mattress. I'm laying on the floor. I'm using my little sister's blanket on the ground. I don't have any dressers. You know when you go to college your mom gives away all your stuff — she sells it or puts it in some warehouse. So I didn't have none of my stuff. I just was laying on the floor. I had my car but now that's gone. So what else could I lose? My back's against the wall. I'm going to continue to keep pursuing making videos. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's what I did.

I was using my mom's house as essentially a movie set. I started to flip the couch upside down. I wanted to do a surveillance camera at the top left side of the room to make it look like I'm on First 48 — interviewing myself on a First 48 episode. That's one of the skits. I have another skit where I'm using this jacket my mom had in the closet, putting that on, acting like a news reporter for Fox 5 in the backyard. I'd prop the phone up on the trash can outside and my mom used to come home and be like, "What the hell are you doing?" She used to see the house in shambles, but I've got to give it to her because she stuck through it with me.

I would always give her updates. "I have 10K followers now. I have 15K followers." She's like, "Okay, so what does that mean? Did you make any money?" I'm like, "No, but I have people watching." "Oh, I got 100K followers." "Did you make any money yet?" No, but people are watching. I continuously just kept giving these updates. Eventually I started to make money through promotion — promoting people's music and their videos, throwing it on my story. I would do a full day of promotion. It would make me a couple hundred dollars maybe, and that would be enough to maybe go out that night. It wasn't anything real fulfilling. I would help my mom with groceries. I would try to do things to make money, but it wasn't really making any real money at the time. And then I continued to keep building.

Steven Bartlett: I've got a video here that I found. You can explain what this one is to me.

Druski: Yeah, man. I know what's going on, man. That was fresh off of scamming right there. That was actually my first video I ever posted on socials. Ever. First video ever. That's when Instagram first started the whole 15-second video post thing. You know, Vine was doing it for like six seconds and I was never on that. And I came around and it was like 15 seconds on Instagram you could post a video. My friend Chanty — now he's like my lead comedic writer — he was like, "Bro, just post it." And I was like, "This is kind of silly. Those are like $1 bills, bro. I was acting like I had money." And he was like, "Just post it." I think that got like maybe 80 comments, 60 or 70 comments, something like that. It was like hometown people. And they were just like, "Oh my god, this is so funny. We see what you're doing. That's dope. Hopefully you do more." People were just supporting it. I was like, "All right, well, I'm more creative than this." And I started to continuously become more and more creative because I was like, "All right, I did that, but that's like silly stuff. I know what I'm capable of." But yeah, that was the very first video I ever threw up.

Steven Bartlett: This one I found really interesting. You're saying in that video that you're going to be on Meek Mill's level someday and that you dapped him up and told him that.

Druski: I lied about that. I did not dap him up and tell him that. I saw him at a party and I shouted it over somebody like, "Yo, Meek, I'm a big fan, man. I'mma be on your level someday." I didn't shake his hand. I was just chatting.

But in our county, we have almost like what you would call a hood legend — Lou Williams. He went to the same high school I went to. He made it to the NBA, played amongst a bunch of teams. Sixman. Drake did a song about Lou Will. So he was almost like the hero to us. He would throw these parties which essentially had all these celebrities come to Gwinnett County. At the time, Gwinnett County is not on the map. It's not a known thing — we're just a suburb outside of Atlanta. And he would have these celebrities come to these parties and we would be able to go because we're locals. You would see all these celebrities and I was like, "Wow." I would look at Lou Will's house — he's currently in the NBA — and I'm like, "This is insane." And Meek Mill came one night and I told him that, but I just shouted it and he had a bunch of security with him. He didn't even let us over there.

But yeah, you could tell I was a kid manifesting. There was no stutter in my speech right there. I definitely felt that way about everything I was doing. I probably have said a lot of things around that time that weren't recorded where I was very much trying to pursue greatness. I've always been a big fan of pursuing greatness my entire life. I never wanted to just be good. I always wanted to be great.

Steven Bartlett: The thing I find interesting generally is in that situation — look at that context. You're in your mother's house. You're using the front room and a blanket as both your bed and your creative studio. Objectively, the odds are stacked against you. But in your head, you're thinking, "I'm either going to be great or, in your words, I'm going to kill myself." When you said that, what did you actually mean?

Druski: I was chasing being great. That might have been far-fetched of me to say something as wild as that, but that's honestly how I felt. I was going to make it happen or I was going to perceive myself as a failure. I saw nothing else but a green light down this tunnel. I knew in the back of my mind what I was capable of. I already knew. I felt like my entire life I knew, but I just didn't put the pieces together. But when I told my mom that, I knew — I have committed to something that I know there is no possible in or out. I'm going to do this or die trying, truthfully.

I knew I wasn't going to kill myself. Because I believe I'm going to do it. But if I don't — I'm out of here. Sounds crazy, but it's true. That's how much belief I had in myself. That's how I felt with my back against the wall. I really did want to do it that bad. And still, I do feel the same about achieving greatness. I don't tend to like things that are just good. People are like, "Oh my god, I became rich. I'm good, man. I'm going on vacation." I don't do any vacationing. I find it soothing to be in a chaos situation of work and juggling multiple projects at once. That is what I want to do. This is what I got into it for.

What It Takes to Be Successful

Steven Bartlett: When you look back on that season of life where you were still at your mom's house — as a 31-year-old now, what has it taught you about what it takes to be successful broadly? Remove luck from the equation. Generally, what has it taught you about what it takes to be successful in the pursuit of a goal like that, where to be honest, not many people ever make any money? The odds of being successful as a comedian — defined as being able to provide for yourself and a family — are slim to none.

Druski: It's crazy odds. But the thing is, most people don't really want to be great. Most people just say it because it sounds good. I would be around a lot of guys that be like, "Yo, let's do it. Let's wake up in the morning. Let's just go." Everybody eventually just goes away. Everybody that said they were going to do it — they do it one day, they're not showing up the third or the second day. Nobody shows up continuously for the work.

And once I noticed there's a small amount of people that are showing up for the actual work of anything, it just showed me that I'm in a lane of my own. I'm pursuing something that most people say, but they're not really trying to pursue. Everybody wants to be number one. Everybody wants to be top of the list, but nobody really wants to do the work. Nobody's obsessed with it continuously, every day and night, having dreams about it. Nobody's sitting and editing with their editors 18 hours plus, just sitting looking at clips. Nobody's going and doing tours while trying to continuously film a TV show — Could Have Been Love in the middle of that tour. Nobody's trying to also shoot a movie like right now we're shooting with Universal — The Catch with Emma Stone and Chris Pine — while also still trying to fulfil my social media presence. I'm trying to juggle all these things in one because I want to be great. I don't want to just do it and be like, "Okay, I'm going to take some time off." I really want to be number one.

I joke about it all the time because one of my favourite movies is Talladega Nights, and Ricky Bobby said, "If you ain't first, you're last." Me and my family joke about it all the time, but I kind of took that vision seriously because that's really how I live my life.

Steven Bartlett: What happens when you become number one?

Druski: You still got to keep pushing the mountain because somebody's chasing. Somebody's on the way. So the journey never ends because you're always continuously chasing. If it's not the people before you, it's trying to continue to set the bar high for the people behind you.

Steven Bartlett: What does being great mean in your definition of the word? How would you know you've become great?

Druski: I think being great has a lot of different meanings. It doesn't have a money value or a certain touring value. Being great in all ways just comes down to how far you're willing to set the bar. There's always people before you that have done great things. You got Eddie Murphy that has set the bar way up here. Then you got Kevin Hart that's damn near where Eddie's at. And he looks very healthy — he looks like he might take it further than Eddie. Who knows? There's always somebody gaining on that right behind the great before you. The same with Kobe, Jordan, LeBron. Somebody's going to continuously keep setting the bar high. We're all trying to leave a legacy. I would love to be in that conversation when it's all said and done. Just to be in that conversation and to be remembered and to leave a legacy — that's what matters.

Steven Bartlett: One of the things I've observed with people that go in the pursuit of greatness and achieve it is they have a different level of patience and a longer time horizon. Because with Eddie, with Kevin, it takes a lot of lonely, lonely years — decades sometimes. I was sat here with the greatest illusionist in the world and he told me he spent 10 years doing card tricks on restaurant tables. And Jimmy Carr dropped out of his great job in marketing and spent five, six years getting paid absolutely nothing just cracking jokes in pubs. What sane person would take that trade?

When I zoom back into where you were in your mother's house — from college to the moment where you go, "Actually, this might be able to pay my way so I can move out" — how long was that period of time?

Druski: Years, man. Honestly, years. We're talking like years of seeing nothing. And I think people don't see that. People see with social media there's a bunch of quick reaction to things and they're like, "Oh my god, this person went viral. Now what can I do with this?" People always worried about, "Oh, I did this video and now I'm going to go get a team." What are you doing? You don't need a team. Keep grinding. Do it again. Do it again, man.

And when you're trying to be great, you never get a chance to celebrate the things that you have done. You almost don't feel it in the moment because you're looking for the next thing. I do the same thing. We did the BET Awards and the next day I was already flying to go shoot my TV show Collect and Praise with Mike Epps. Immediately the next day, we almost — I didn't even get a chance to take it in. I'm like, "Oh my god, I just did the BET Awards. Something I always wanted to do in my life." Boom. I'm on a plane. I'm at the next thing. Immediately after I do Collect and Praise — we shot that for two weeks back to back — boom, on a plane. The next day after the final day of that, we're all clapping, everything, on a plane. Next day, we're shooting The Catch with Emma Stone and Chris Pine. So you never really get a chance to take a lot of these things in because you're continuously progressing.

My mom would always — I feel like she influenced me to be like that. I would come home from school and be like, "Oh, I got a B on this test." She's like, "Oh, you could have done better." Or, "I did this at school." "Oh, come on. You could have done better on that." Not like it's not enough, but it's like you always can do better. Even if you got an A, why didn't you get an A+?

Steven Bartlett: Do you want to be a dad yourself?

Druski: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Of course.

Steven Bartlett: Where's that going to fit in this crazy life?

Druski: We have no idea. We've got to find a wife first, bro. I'm trying to find love first. But both my parents did that same thing — I would bring my dad math equations and him being a pilot, he would break it down in crazy ways. I would say, "Oh, this is division. Could you help me with this?" And he'd take 40 minutes and be like, "You answered it, but you could have done the long division this way. Let me tell you — mx times bx squared and you could get this answer reversed." I'd be like, "Yo, what the hell, bro? I just brought you a simple division equation. Why did you make it long division and then go into MX times bx squared?"

But these are my parents. They're always looking for the greater thing. Always, no matter what it was. Even if it was academics — you could have done better, or you could have gotten it a different way, or there's other routes to get to it. It was almost never a correct answer in my household because there's different ways you could find an answer to anything. Imagine what that does to my mind — I've got to find a way, and not just in one way. I've got to find it in multiple different ways.

So when I do my type of comedy, I never sit on doing one thing. I can be funny in a sketch version. I can be funny in a movie. I can be funny on a TV show. I can be funny in a commercial. You see a T-Mobile commercial, you see Druski's face on it with Zoe Saldana and Jeff Bridges. Why the hell is Druski on here with Zoe and Jeff? I don't know. But it works. It's a comedic relief of this commercial. But I feel like my life has gone in that direction because of these upbringings, these teachings that both my parents had set for us.

The Drake Moment and Breaking Through

Steven Bartlett: Was there a first check or first opportunity that you really wanted to tell your mom about because this was kind of proof that you were right?

Druski: I think you're saying like a big check moment. I had one moment. It might have been 2022, kind of after COVID died down. I was gaining a little bit more traction everywhere. And I had told her that a celebrity had posted me and I was so excited. I was like, "Oh my god, a celebrity posted me." And she was like, "So what happens now? Did they tag you in it? Did people follow you?" I was like, "No, they didn't tag me. They just posted the video." She's like, "Did you get an opportunity? Like, are you going to shoot a video? Are you doing anything with them?" I was like, "No, no, no. They just reposted my video." And she's like, "Now what?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm back to square one." My parents were big on breaking things down. So you never really feel fulfilled. You're always trying to figure out — this opportunity is great, but what's next?

Steven Bartlett: Do you feel fulfilled with your work now?

Druski: No, not yet. Too young. There's too much more to go, man. Way too much. Look what Jim Carrey did. Look at Eddie Murphy, man. Look what Chris Farley achieved. Adam Sandler, man.

Steven Bartlett: Are you happy though?

Druski: I'm very happy. I'm very happy. But fulfilled? No. I have so much more.

Steven Bartlett: Is it not possible to be fulfilled and also to be in pursuit?

Druski: Anybody that is pursuing greatness will never tell you that the hunger has stopped. It has to continuously keep going. There's no way. No way, man.

Steven Bartlett: So, closing off in this period of your life where you're still at your mom's house — when did that change? What was the moment where you were like, "I can leave now"?

Druski: I had all my clothes stacked in the living room because people started to send me so much merch. When you become an influencer, they send you loads of clothes — they want you to wear it in your next video. So I had all these clothes stacked up in her dining room area. I started to kind of make some money to where I was like, "All right, maybe I need to find an apartment now." But I think the thing that changed my life at the time was Drake calling for the Laugh Now Cry Later Later music video. Everything shifted after that because brands started to take me seriously. It wasn't "send us free merch" or "we'll bring you out to this event and you can get in free." Now it's transactional with everything.

Once I was seen on a higher level — Drake, Lil Durk, Marshawn Lynch, Kevin Durant, Odell Beckham Jr., all in this video alongside me, and me being the comedic relief in this video called Laugh Now Cry Later Later — this meant a lot more than just another music video.

Steven Bartlett: Where were you when you found out that he had called?

Druski: He was just a big fan of a lot of the stuff I was posting during that early time. It wasn't until then that any real money was coming in. No money at all. But that shifted everything because brands started to see me in a broader light. They started to see me as an actual star, so to say, instead of just another among all these other guys doing comedic things.

Steven Bartlett: But were you speaking to him directly on DMs or something?

Druski: Yeah, it was just all through DM at the time, up until I met him. But yeah, all that was very just short back and forth — laughing at this video, laugh at that video, find this funny, find that funny. And then we had a long conversation once he told me I would be starring in that music video. And that was just about leading this generation of comedy and what I am to the world at the time. And I'm hearing his words and I'm like, "Yo, maybe this dude's just gassing me up. This is wild to hear from somebody who is in my eyes a full-blown mega star." But yeah, that's one of those things — I could never repay him, man. That was to take a chance on me at the time, just doing silly stuff of what I thought was great. But looking back, it's so minimal to what I do now. I can't believe he took a chance on me in that circumstance. But it shifted everything almost immediately. The transactional conversation started to come into play.

Relationships, Business, and Brand Safety

Steven Bartlett: When you look back on your arc and you hear about other people's journeys, what else have you learned about what it takes? There's the obsession, there's the dedication, there's the hours. What about the business part? Like how do you climb ladders? Is it people? Is it knowing a guy?

Druski: It's all relationships. Even in the biggest buildings, majority of it is relationships. Of course, your talent weighs a lot, but relationships are very much key.

Steven Bartlett: What does that mean for someone that has no idea what goes on in these buildings?

Druski: Relationships are key because these people want to know that you are a good person to be around. They want to know — if you're going to be starring in my T-Mobile commercial, we want to have dinner with you. We want to see what type of person you are. They want to make sure you're not a guy that's going to go out and do something wild after we trust you with this. You're going to be all over TV. We sign you to a Nike deal. You're in a T-Mobile deal. These people — it's all about relationship. Who you know, how you treat people. They like to sense what type of person you are in a separate environment from who you are as the celebrity. People tend to want to meet who the real you is before we present you to our world. We want to see who you are as a person.

So I feel like a lot of my upbringing was around this broad horizon of different ethnicities, different genders — Indian people, Mexican, white, Black, African, Jamaican, everything you could ever think. That type of stuff shaped me to be able to go in these rooms with these bigger brands and be able to talk to anybody.

Steven Bartlett: Did you have to mature or learn a skill of like coming from where you come from to be in a room with these big brands and these people in suits in corporate America?

Druski: Nah, man. I've always been a people person. Any time I would as a kid go into a grocery store, if I saw a kid's parent that plays with me on a football team, I would go up and talk to his dad and make him laugh and joke — "Hey, man, give me a cigarette, man. Let me get a cigarette." Just jokingly talk as if I'm not 10 years old. But I think that is a big part of what I've learned about the industry in general. It's about more about relationships and how you treat people. How this dinner goes with this guy who may not know nothing about you — are you able to have a one-on-one conversation with him and have him trust you? Are you a good person? And I think it comes down to that regardless of anything you do.

Steven Bartlett: So it's interesting because when you're dealing with corporate America and these big brands — you've got this off-camera Drew guy who meets them for the dinner, but then you've got Druski on camera. And Druski on camera — part of your comedy is you really push the boat out. You say the part out loud that most people wouldn't say. There's this term in advertising — brand safety — which means is this person sufficiently sanitised enough that we can trust them with the brand. But then on the other end, the thing that people love about you is you say the part that other people don't say. What's your framework when you're thinking about content? How do you decide whether this is okay or if it's not?

Druski: That's a great question. I think the way I look at all of this stuff — and people ask me that all the time — is that I've never punched down with any jokes I ever do. Any jokes I ever do always come from a good-hearted place. Even if I'm doing auditions, a skit, anything — you can never show me something I've done that was like, "Oh, that's punching down or that wasn't inclusive of the other person that might have been in that situation." I always come from a light-hearted place and a good-hearted place with my comedy. I never was the guy to have that dark humour of things that might come from a bad place.

I'm not a political guy. I'm not a guy that's going out here trying to portray like I know anything about anything. I am just the guy here for laughs — comedian. I don't care for none of that serious stuff. People ask me all these deep questions and I'm like, "Yo, I don't look at anything like that. I'm just being me."

Steven Bartlett: You are consistent. I went through all of your skits and I was thinking — he's consistent with his values and what he's not aiming at. You're not aiming at anyone in particular. You're just pointing at the funny.

Druski: Not punching down — that's a big one. People can never show me anything and say, "Okay, he's punching down at this. This is coming from a bad place." It's always me genuinely just speaking on what's funny, or mannerisms, or things I see people do where I'm people-watching, or just exposing things to the world that we see but don't notice that we see.

It has nothing to do with the political side or the race side and all that stuff. It's just stuff that's going on in real life that we see. Sometimes comedians have a way of showing the viewer something that they don't notice that they see. It could be in the back of your brain and you can bring it to life and be like, "Wow, I might have saw that 15 years ago, but that's funny because I remember seeing that." You bring these things to life. This is what a great comedic actor does.

Steven Bartlett: It's probably there's something in the fact that if both sides at some point are angry at you or shouting at you for doing something, at least that means that you're not politically affiliated — because you're just finding things funny everywhere versus just finding them funny over there or just finding them funny over there.

Druski: I agree. I've never had the want to do that. Some people have these late night shows that talk about that type of stuff — that's their spill. That's not my spill.

Steven Bartlett: And I'll sit with Michelle Obama or JD Vance or Ivanka Trump or Kamala Harris. I've sat with all of them. I'll sit with all of them and I'll ask the questions I'm curious about. I think it's possible just to be curious.

Druski: I agree.

The Viral Sketch and Trump

Steven Bartlett: It sounded like Trump did ask Erica Kirk to sue you though.

Druski: I don't know if that's true though. I don't know.

Steven Bartlett: It looks like it. I read it and I thought, there's no way that's true. In March, you released a video of how conservative white women in America act, and it did hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of views. I think I watched it like 20 times.

Druski: Insane, man. Insane.

Steven Bartlett: And then in April, exactly one week later, Trump made the comment to Erica Kirk that she should sue him. He didn't say who, but I'm just saying — who knows.

Druski: I don't know if he was talking about me. To this day, I have no idea. But people sent me that video. I just didn't know if it was directed towards me. I just left it alone. I have no idea.

Steven Bartlett: That's crazy though. But even in a weird way, it does speak to the impact of your work.

Druski: If he was — I don't know if he was though.

Steven Bartlett: You hope he was.

Druski: I'm not looking to get sued by nobody. I'm not looking forward to that. No, man. For sure. No.

Steven Bartlett: Is it a compliment in a weird way?

Druski: Not necessarily. I don't think I would be looking to get sued by anybody. We have too much stuff that we're pursuing right now to be looking forward to that. No, not at all. But that is crazy thinking about it. I'm thinking about you in that room with your sister's blanket and then Trump's like, "Sue him," in the White House. That's crazy.

Steven Bartlett: Kind of inspiring in a weird way.

Druski: No, but I don't think that was towards me.

Rejections, Self-Investment, and Betting on Yourself

Steven Bartlett: So since then it's been an unbelievable career. You've really managed to do something that very few people who start out making content on the internet are able to do — which is traverse multiple industries and mediums. I feel like I've seen you everywhere. Did you do the Super Bowl?

Druski: Yeah, we did a Super Bowl commercial. Last year it was the Dunkin' Donuts Super Bowl commercial. This year it was T-Mobile with the Backstreet Boys.

Steven Bartlett: I heard this crazy story that they accidentally sent you Jim Carrey's money.

Druski: Jim Carrey's — no, they didn't send the money. They sent an email showing how much he would be getting paid for the hour, or the two hours that he was there. Insane. And they weren't supposed to. They were actually mad that I even spoke on that. But he didn't even show up. I don't think he ever said yes to it. But they accidentally sent it to me assuming that it was Jim Carrey's management. They sent it to my management and I think they accidentally sent the proposal — which was supposed to be for him — to me, and might have sent my proposal to him. I can only imagine if he saw the amount I was getting. That's probably why he didn't do this. Did Jim Carrey see the proposal? How much I was getting paid? I don't know. But yeah, it was an insane amount of money. And I was like, "Wow." That gives me a lot of inspiration to become on that level one day.

Steven Bartlett: People are saying it was in the region of $5 million.

Druski: It's around that.

Steven Bartlett: For two hours of shooting. And they sent you that figure so you got to see what he was being paid for two hours. He didn't see mine because that would have been embarrassing.

Druski: So that's $2.5 million an hour to shoot a commercial and he said no. Imagine what he wants. And I'm not sure if it's money. He's one of those guys that doesn't look at a money sign and just say yes. He genuinely cares about his craft and his legacy. He still hadn't done a Grinch 2 until recently — they just announced they're shooting it. So how much money was he wanting before? Or was it even about money? Or did he just not want to do another one? I feel like he's very specific about everything that he does.

You ever seen Fire Marshall Bill from In Living Color? Oh my god. You have no idea. That's damn near the beginning of the character of the Grinch. Fire Marshall Bill is like the teaser of what the Grinch became. And the mask — it has a twist of the mask in there too. He was like the only white person on In Living Color at the time.

Steven Bartlett: He's very philosophical. Wise.

Druski: Yeah, he's very wise, man.

Steven Bartlett: Have you met him?

Druski: Never met him. One day. That's another guy that's on my list that I would love to meet, man.

Steven Bartlett: Part of the game that we often don't speak about as well with people like yourself is just the rejection along the way. Your story could quite easily be portrayed as this sort of bump in the road here, college, a couple issues here, this situation happens, Drake calls after you've spent a long time on your own posting and compounding, and then off to the races. Happy ending. But there's still rejection along the way. I was reading that you were rejected by both Netflix and Amazon.

Druski: Yeah. Early on.

Steven Bartlett: What was the proposal you made to them and what was that experience?

Druski: It wasn't just one time. We've had years and years of proposals. We were supposed to get a show with FX — it was a no. We were supposed to do a movie with Amazon — it was a no. Supposed to do multiple different products with Netflix — no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And we just never gave up.

And I eventually said, if I'm getting money from these companies and they're paying me, instead of going and buying a car or another house or nice jewellery and all this stuff, I'm going to invest in myself. I decided to just go and do all these show ideas I had on YouTube and spend my own money to invest into it. And that is essentially what I did. That's what brought you Could Have Been Auditions, Could Have Been Love, Could Have Been House, Could Have Been Daddy — amongst other things. You've seen the Druski universe of taking it to another level with all the sketches and the production I've done and the millions of dollars I've spent. I started to just believe in myself and not turn around and try to do the same proposal again in a better way. I'm just going to bet on myself.

And then it's a whole different story now. Now they want to purchase these shows that we've made and do more in the future. Now it's a bidding war.

Steven Bartlett: What is the lesson there?

Druski: The lesson there is just believe in yourself, man. Before anybody sees the vision, you have to see it. If you don't see the vision yourself, you're almost doing yourself a disservice. It has to start with you. And I think most people don't understand what they have in front of them. Everybody's like, "Oh, I'm waiting on the big movie break. Once they give me an opportunity—" You don't even believe in yourself, man. All that money you got last year from this and that — you didn't put not one dime into your content. You still shooting the same stuff with the same phone. And that's cool. Some people are cool with that. You don't need much. Not saying you need the big productions I have. But are you really doubling down and betting on yourself if you're not investing in your own stuff?

That was a conversation I had to have with myself. I'm going to show them not by coming back and doubling back. I'm going to show them by doing it myself and having them wanting what I did in reverse. And along the way, you're going to have a lot of smart people — by their job title or their status or their LinkedIn bio — telling you that you're wrong. Telling you that idea is not a good one.

Steven Bartlett: And that is something you have to conceptualise in your head — how do I deal with that? This smart person at insert streaming platform is telling me no.

Druski: Plenty of people have told me no, man. Even down to the dudes that were making fun of me at college saying, "Oh, you don't even have shoes to go out with us. Why would we pick you up?" I told those guys on the second to last week I was going to classes that I was going to try to pursue comedy, and they were like, "Bro, come on, man. You're funny, bro, but you ain't that funny. Think about what you're going up against. You're going up against Kevin Hart, the Kings of Comedy, Bernie Mac and all these guys. Think about it, bro. What they're doing — that's unfathomable. You can't even—" I'll never forget that conversation.

Steven Bartlett: Were they right when they said, "By the way, Drew, those legends are up there and you're down here"?

Druski: Not a shot. They weren't right. Not at all. I believed even then — I could already see it happening. I had visions of it already being in front of me before I even got a chance to actually do it.

Steven Bartlett: I guess also what I'm saying is — they could have been theoretically right that there was a long gap. It's not to say you couldn't close it.

Druski: I agree. But the way they put it was almost like it wasn't even possible.

Steven Bartlett: Do you know why I say this? Because there are so many kids right now that are looking at you, or they're looking at insert sports athlete or insert podcaster, and they're looking up at a mountain top and going — objectively that person is better than me. They have the skills, the mannerisms, the body language down. The gap is so big that I won't even bother. Did you ever feel the gap was big?

Druski: I never looked at it like it was a big gap. The problem with looking at it like it's a big gap — once you process your brain into thinking this is so far unattainable, the journey becomes not even something you're thinking about. There has to be steps. So from me seeing that those guys are great and have done amazing things — I look up to all of them — but I know it's achievable. I had steps in place that I knew, and nobody else could see these steps up to this level of trying to be great. Nobody else sees that. You're the only person that is able to see these small steps. So once I started to see the small steps, I'm like, I'm only going up a ladder. I'm not not getting closer. I know this is a far maybe thing, but I'm not looking at it like that because every small thing I feel like I'm gaining on it.

Steven Bartlett: So you're just focused on the small steps.

Druski: I was focused on the small. If you focus on the far goal, you'll never achieve anything. Let's say you're like, "Oh, I'm going to win an Oscar," and you just started as an actor. Yes, you can say, "I want to win an Oscar." But what are the small steps you're going to do before achieving that? What are all these stairs all the way to where this Oscar is? If you don't look at all these stairs, bro — it's like looking at a mountain without a ladder. You've got to find a way to climb it. If you don't have steps or a ladder or nothing, you don't have no way to get to it.

What those guys were saying was almost like, "Come on, man. That's so wild to think." As if those legends didn't come from the same thing. Because those gods, those people you're looking up to — when they were 19, 20, they probably were in the same position. You're not thinking that. You see them in this light of, "Oh my gosh, this is that guy," but you don't see the process. Once you break down what every single great person has done, you start to see they all took these steps. Nothing just was an overnight thing.

Steven Bartlett: I do ask myself though — through that journey up the ladder, sane people wouldn't bother because there's always naysayers and there's easier money. Red Lobster. There's easier money at this call centre over here. You can scam over here. There's other things going on.

Druski: There's easy money everywhere, too. That's a thing that most people don't recognise. Some people glorify money more than they glorify the actual pursuit of greatness. Most people will go and grab the money because the money's good and they will dilute the whole brand and wash it away before it was ever even able to start.

I've had opportunities. People like, "Oh, come and do my music video, do this." And when I was on the way up, I kept thinking — damn, if I do all these random music videos, yeah, he got a couple thousand dollars from me. He's a drug dealer. He got a couple thousand. I go grab this. But I'm thinking about my image. This dude's music sucks. If I'm doing this for a quick $2,000 and I'm on the way — I see where my greatness is going — but if I grab this quick money, this might kind of take me off my pivot. I want to only do special things. Maybe I just kind of don't look at the money right now and I only focus on the main goal.

And that's when I started to change my way of thinking. Because at first I was grabbing all the money — promoting everybody's music or video, promoting their merch and all this stuff. Then I started to see — damn, I'm creating these great things and I'm giving these looks to all these other things and not myself. This is not where I envisioned myself to be. I want to put all this in the back of my mind. I'm not even thinking about money. I'm thinking about where I'm going.

Health, Wellbeing, and the Next Five Years

Steven Bartlett: You look very healthy. You look like you've been hitting the gym or lifting weights or something.

Druski: No, man. I just had to start eating kind of right too. I started to care about what I was putting into my body. I'll always continue to be a heavy set guy. I want to be one of the heavy set legends of all time, but you ain't got to be the biggest dude in the business. I was like, "Okay, I'm going to be a healthy, heavy set guy." And once I set my mind on that, I was like, "All right, that's what I'm going to do." I understand what my image is. I've always looked up to all the great legends that were heavy set dudes — Chris Farley, Cedric the Entertainer, Jack Black. These are guys I look up to. So I never not wanted to be that. I just knew both things can be true.

Steven Bartlett: When did you think this?

Druski: Like a year ago. I was just like, "All right, every decision doesn't just got to be drinking every night and every decision don't got to be just gorging yourself with food just because you got money now." You can eat these things and still go hoop at the gym with your boys. Both things could be true. A good balance is a healthy lifestyle. I'm at a weight where I feel like, all right, I'm comfortable. I'm good.

Steven Bartlett: What is next for you in your world? If we sit down in five years' time and it's been a great five years since we last spoke — what happened?

Druski: I became a superstar. That is my full pursuit right now. You don't see the blonde hair. You don't see the long beard. You don't see the Druski that you once saw — "oh, the social media guy." You see the superstar Druski and what he has evolved to become. That is what my next five-year goal is, and continuously past that. My next 30-year goal is to be the number one comedian of my generation and be the face of comedy for the next 30 years — how Eddie Murphy did, how Kevin Hart did, or Will Ferrell and all these guys I look up to. I want to have a run like that.

My thing is not just doing one thing for one era. I like to watch people and how they evolve over their career. When you see Eddie go from the raw stuff into movies where he's alongside one of the biggest white actors of that time, and he leaves SNL and then does family movies, and then does Harlem Nights with Richard Pryor and Life with Martin Lawrence — I would want to do that same type of stuff for my generation. I want to team up with all the big comedic people of this time. I want to be the face of this generation for comedy.

Steven Bartlett: Have you learned to talk big? Because a lot of people don't have the guts to say, "I want to be a superstar. I want to be the number one in my generation." Have you learned to talk like that, or have you always spoken like that?

Druski: I've always spoken that way. Always. Even from early on days. I always wanted to be more than just good.

I've always wanted to continue to evolve. So certain things that I've said then — I've noticed that I've grown since then and I want to break the chains of that. I want to continue to evolve and become this newer person. I want to do the Jamie Foxx thing — doing the Ray biopic and getting an Oscar for that, oh my god, that's amazing. But then turn around and do Django, which is a mixture of comedy and real acting. And then turn around and do a funny comedy movie. That's the type of evolving I'm looking to do in my career where I can continue to just keep transcending.

And I didn't learn to talk that way. That is something that was taught to me from my upbringing. Just being confident in myself and knowing who you are. That might have been because my mom was recording me from three, four, five, six, seven years old and continuously on, always trying to have home videos of me dancing and making my family laugh and all this crazy stuff. But yeah, these are things that I built confidence over time to become.

Advice to His Younger Self

Steven Bartlett: If you could rewind the clock and say a couple of words to this Druski in that college dorm room, on his own, no friends — what does that guy need to hear?

Druski: I would say to believe in yourself more than you have ever believed in your entire life. You can be iconic. You are great. You are one of one. And to stay consistent even when the road looks rough and you cannot see the hole at the end of the tunnel, because that's something that most people usually jump off the railroad for. They can't see the outcome once it gets kind of blurry and foggy. My car got repossessed — most people quit at that point. Their girl cheats on them, or something bad happens when you sat on your knees and prayed all night. And boom, God starts to shift things. Things start to shift. And then people — oh my god, I asked him for this. Yeah, it's because he put you through the trial. You didn't even get through the trials and the tribulations yet. He started to remove things from your life as soon as you asked for it, and now you're questioning why it happened. This is what you essentially wanted. This is what you asked for. And most people, they get off the track before it even starts. They can't see the outcome, so they get worried and they just jump off. That's what I would tell myself, man. Stay to it. Stick to it.

Steven Bartlett: There's an interesting point here — a lot of us talk about never quitting, but sometimes you do have to quit. You quit college.

Druski: Certain things — rappers, if you're out there and you're still rapping past 30, quit. Get off that mic and get out of that studio. Sometimes you do get out of that studio, man. I agree. To some sort, yes.

Steven Bartlett: It's interesting because I think everything's nuanced. When you've got a passion, of course you pursue it — especially when there's evidence. But I wonder in your industry because there are going to be a lot of people pursuing comedy who might not have — and this is always the balancing act. I started a podcast and it went well. So I've got a little bit of survivorship bias. The advice I might give to young podcasters is just like, "Well, start it in your kitchen and then just keep at it for six years." But there might have been some advantages I'm not aware of. In your case, I look at you as six years old — you were funny.

Druski: Yeah.

Steven Bartlett: You were funny at six. So if I tried to be you, I would objectively have a harder time, if not total failure. So there's almost this weird self-awareness component of knowing thyself.

Druski: Mhm.

Steven Bartlett: Because I might stay in the studio past 50 if you know what I'm saying. Because people like me and you — we survived, we got there. So we look back down and just go, "Consistency is the number one thing." But somewhere in there, there's like an element of self-awareness. And you must get it all the time — people rolling up to you and just start cracking jokes.

Druski: Yeah. You have to have a good fake laugh. Because it does get bad. People just want to come up to you and say random stuff.

But no, I do agree with you. You have to have a sense of awareness and your judgment has to be on point, because it's not just about staying consistent. It's about knowing the feeling of — this is the thing. It took me some time with that. It did take me time. But I think most people aren't okay with sitting down in silence and figuring it out. Most people will say, "I'm so confused. I can't figure out what I want to do. I have all these great things I want to do." But they don't ever put their phone down. They don't ever try to sit with themselves and figure things out. Nobody tries to remove themselves from all the stuff. That same person will go get high or get drunk or go and talk to somebody else. And maybe it hurts for them to do that. That's the thing — people won't sit with themselves and do that.

That is one of the main things that shifted my entire life — sitting down in silence and figuring out what it is that I want to do. You go through everything you grew up loving to do. You go through everything that you want to pursue and you figure it out through all that. But until you sit in silence and sit with yourself as the true you — not the you that's high, not the you that's drunk, not the you that just wants to go to a friend and talk — you've got to sit with yourself and figure this out. Most people don't want to do that. And that's cool. But that is the key to figuring it out, by far.

Closing Question and Future Projects

Steven Bartlett: Druski, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you: if you could make it happen, who would you most want to be like in your next life?

Druski: Oh man. Michael Jackson.

Steven Bartlett: Why?

Druski: He's arguably the most iconic individual of all time. He achieved real greatness — of all aspects of perfecting a craft. He figured out a way to do it all. He had gangsters dancing in his music video. He changed his persona. He continued to evolve with his career. He went from the kid artist — most people can't go from the kid to the real one and still have success. They can't do that. He created a whole new entity, a whole new person, and you forgot that he was the Jackson 5 kid. This is a whole new guy. I would say it would have had to be him for sure.

Steven Bartlett: I watched your skit pretending to be his father, Joe Jackson.

Druski: Yeah, that was some aspects of Joe Jackson that my dad had some personality of. It wasn't hard to rip that belt off, man. I've seen it before. Hell yeah.

Steven Bartlett: What can people look forward to from you? What are you working on? What's your next big project?

Druski: The next big project is the Collect and Praise show that's coming out in November. Me and Mike Epps. It's a show about mega pastors. I did a mega pastor skit that was huge. And this show is a huge comedic semi-scripted TV show that'll be coming to Netflix and YouTube. It is honestly one of the biggest culture-shifting shows of all time, bro. This is going to be amazing. So that's a big one that's coming.

The Catch with Emma Stone and Chris Pine — that's coming out in May of 2027. That's a while out. And then just more Druski — you're also just going to see me everywhere. TV commercials, movies that we're doing ourselves. We just got a movie picked up by Netflix. I can't speak on what it's called. And yeah, amongst so many other things. I'm trying to achieve greatness.

Steven Bartlett: It's super inspiring for so many reasons. It's inspiring because you're so young, but it's also inspiring because you're so willing to vocalise your focus on being truly great. And that asks of everybody listening — how can we be greater? Considering where you've come from and the turbulent childhood you had, and the odds were very much stacked against you for a number of reasons — for you to push your way through that and climb to the very top of your industry, with much more room to continue to grow in the 60, 70 years you have probably left on this planet, is going to be unbelievable to watch. And you're a good human being on and off camera, which I respect tremendously. So we're all going to be cheering for you. And thank you so much for being here. It's been an honour.

Druski: Great to meet you, man. I'm a big fan of your show. You do really well with everything.