Comedian Michelle de Swarte has lived in London and America and has been a model and a cat sitter. She has recently been making waves onscreen, starring in the Sky/HBO horror-comedy The Baby. And now she is setting out on her first stand-up tour, entitled Moved.
And de Swarte, 42, certainly has a story to tell, from her turbulent childhood growing up in South London to gracing the Gucci catwalks after being scouted in a bar aged 19. It is a tale that includes drugs, therapy, an encounter with Jeffrey Epstein and getting involved with the New York comedy scene.
Michelle de Swarte appears on Live at the Apollo on Friday, January 27. Her Moved tour runs from March 2 - 25. Dates and tickets here.
Your new show is called Moved, which neatly sums up your last two decades.
'I moved to New York when I was 20 years old and became a model, made loads of money and lived a crazy life. I moved back to the UK at 38 and by the time I got my arse back to London all I owned was in two suitcases. I had no other choice but to start from the absolute beginning. So this show is a funny look at when your ego is inflated and somehow you manage to napalm your life.
This is your first tour. How does it feel?
I'm excited. Sometimes I get nervous. And then afterwards I remind myself that I get to make people laugh so it's pretty nice. You get to turn up and show people a bloody good night.
Before comedy you made lots of money as a model. Where did it go?
Some went up my nose, some went on helping out family members and some went on being really frivolous. I think that when you grow up not really understanding money, or you've been brought up without much, when you get a lot it doesn't really compute. The basics become brunch, handbags, holidays. designer clothes instead of electricity, milk and eggs.
My real drug of choice was escapism, whether going on a holiday last minute, buying an excessive amount of face creams or doing a bag of mushrooms, I was essentially sad and lonely and I didn't feel brave or strong enough to admit it to myself. if you think about your brain like a room and that room looks relatively tidy, and people are happy to sit in that room, it's hard to admit to yourself that below the sofa is absolutely packed with shit. Everything looks fine but underneath it really needs sorting out.
It sounds like your life was all extreme highs and lows
it was mixed, because the industry has got its problems. When you're young and everyone's telling you you're gorgeous and you're getting paid loads of money. It would be hard not for that to have a massive effect. You know, getting your head jammed up your arse.
How did you switch to stand-up?
I was getting to the end of my twenties and asking myself what was I going to do next. Stand-up wasn't a happy accident. I thought, this is something that I could do that's the complete opposite of modelling and doesn't rely on how you look. I started not really understanding how difficult it is and how much hard work it takes. But after you've repeatedly humiliated yourself onstage you start to realise you'd better put some effort in.
What made you move back to London?
My marriage wasn't working out, my model visa had run out, Trump had become President. The USA gave me amazing opportunities, but those opportunities started to dwindle. If you capitalise on a life that's quite vacuous after a while your credit runs out. And I was doing stand up in a place where I couldn't actually vote. At least I could vote here.
Did you find any similarities between modelling and stand-up?
They're both quite solitary. But stand-up is a unique art form. There's a shorthand when you're talking with other comics, whether you know them or not, and you both just get it. Modelling is similar in terms of the only person you can really complain to about the job is another model. I don't think friends are gonna give you much sympathy for going to Hawaii for one day then South Africa the next.
You met Jeffrey Epstein shortly after 9/11. You went to his townhouse with some other models and there was a chance to fly on his private jet but you turned it down. Is it something you talk about onstage?
I talk about it on Live at the Apollo but I don't think I'll be talking about it on tour. Everything kind of has its time in comedy. I can make light of my experience, but I wouldn't want to make light of the situation.
You've certainly got stories to spare. What else do you talk about in Moved?
Being working class, coming into money and mixing with different groups of people and realising you don't have the same cushions as them such as a trust fund or a parent helping you out with a deposit.
You've been homeless a few times?
As a kid my mum, my brother and I lived in a women's aid hostel for a few years, then as a teenager I ended up living there again through my own difficult relationships. Then in my late thirties, before I came back to London, I was, again, technically homeless, not on the streets but couchsurfing and relying on my friends.
You stopped taking cocaine without going to rehab. Did therapy help?
My life changed so rapidly that I didn't get much chance to process stuff. Instead I went out and partied. Now after therapy I can look back. It's so complex. It can be like a lot of seeds, and they all grow in different ways. Someone else can put the same seeds in a different spot and have a completely different landscape to you. My dad is a paranoid schizophrenic so growing up there were good and bad times. He taught me to swim and ride a bike but I found it painful to think about those things before therapy.
What's easier, walking down the catwalk or walking onstage at the Apollo?
I'd rather walk onstage at the Apollo any bloody day. To this day, the funniest thing I've ever done in my life is fall on a Gucci runway three times. It should be so simple. You just you walk down, turn around, come back, but I had such bad stage fright. I was going down the runway like a geezer among these amazing stallions.
You are working on your own TV comedy now about those times?
It's semi-autobiographical, the working title is High End Homeless, which is what I used to say to my best friend. You can sort of cherry pick some of the most tragic scenarios and hopefully make it into some funny material. We are filming it in the summer so I've got to stop having botox so my face is more expressive!
