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EXCLUSIVE: After building a major career for himself in sitcoms, with starring roles on shows like Bob Hearts Abishola and Mike & Molly, Billy Gardell is returning to his roots as a stand-up comic with his first-ever theater tour — and his first tour of any kind in nearly a decade. Kicking off in Eau Claire, WI on January 30, 2026, the tour will see Gardell lean into his personal life experience with all-new material, as is his tendency. Per a recent conversation with the comic, he’ll discuss his recent weight loss of 173 lb. — “because I have to acknowledge the non-elephant in the room” — as well as his relationship with his father, who he calls his hero. He also gets into being both an empty nester and someone who’s at “a sweet spot” in his marriage, 25 years in, using the latter subject as a way into talking about “the delusion of what people think love is today, and what they’re telling our kids love is today, and how our relationships should be.” Inspired by his relationship with his son, who’s in his 20s, Gardell also examines younger generations with a more sympathetic eye than others might. “I think it’s low-hanging fruit to rip on that generation and punch down on them,” he says, referring to people in their 20s and 30s, “when that’s the generation that needs a little wisdom from the older generation more than anybody else has before.” Naturally, he says, “These kids go through the same things we [all] go through: Who am I going to be? Where am I going to live? Is anyone going to love me? And then you add social media on top of that and the state of the world. I think they need an adult they can talk to.” While Gardell has wound up having a long-running Hollywood career, with an emphasis on television, he took the long road to get there, stopping at every small-town lounge, military base and comedy club along the way. Describing his career as “27 years to an overnight success,” he first performed stand-up at an open mic night in 1987 and subsequently spent around nine years on the road before moving to California in 1996 and hitting it big as an actor. Gardell broke out with a pair of hit CBS sitcoms from creator, executive producer and writer Chuck Lorre: Mike & Molly, opposite Melissa McCarthy, which ran for six seasons, and more recently, Bob Hearts Abishola, which ran for five. While he’s committed a large part of his focus to acting since 2010, Gardell stepped back from both acting and stand-up in 2020 to spend three years getting healthy. After getting “so big that it hurt to exercise,” he knew he was in need of a drastic change. And after getting on Ozempic, undergoing bariatric surgery, and completely transforming his lifestyle, he got to where he wanted to be. “I’m not on any medication. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. I’m getting to do things with my wife and kids that I wouldn’t have been able to do before,” Gardell shares. “I caught the unicorn that every heavy person dreams of: I flew in a middle seat. The other big one was buying something right off the rack; that had never happened to me in my entire life. So it’s those little victories that you think about that kind of keep the wind in your sails.” After going through his time of transformation, Gardell thought he might be done with stand-up for good. “But you know, man, I don’t think you can ever be done with it,” he says. “Once that itch grabs you again, once a stand-up, always a stand-up.” After taking an additional hiatus from social media while getting healthy, Gardell realized he needed to get back on if he wanted to fully rebuild his comedy career. “And I’ve actually found the joy in that,” he says. “And I found out that I had some more to say, which was really great.” So after redirecting his focus to other efforts for many years, Gardell is very happy to be back on stage — for the love of the game, first and foremost. “Where I’ve gotten to in my career is, I really feel like making people laugh is service. Because I’ve checked a lot of boxes,” he says. “Once you’re blessed enough to have some success, you get back to just loving your art form. And in my art form, I want people to forget their problems for an hour, connect with each other, remember that we’re just all weird humans trying to bump around on this blue ball, and we need to give each other space. Those are the things I really love to speak about.”
