Page 17 - Katherine Ryan press pack 2015-20

18 style ireland

silver sequined
dress, €7,950,
dOlCe & GaBBana,
from Harvey
nichols. Jewelled
heels, €940,
ManOlO BlaHniK

I don’t like endIngs. That’s very Irish, I think.

I have a mad optimism about the fuTure

Joan Rivers in America. Ryan meets a variety being a female comedian?” variety. When road. Still, Violet is mostly with her mum. “If
of self-made millionaires, from the 10-year- she was 15, her parents divorced and she I was a man, I’d be the most eligible guy on
old Isabella Barrett, who made her money as a lived with her mother and grandmother, the planet. People would be like, ‘This young
star on the TLC channel’s Toddlers and Tiaras, who wore leather gloves while driving a man, he raises a child on his own! How does
to Charlie Mullins, a London plumber with a Cadillac around town. “I grew up in a he do it?’ ” Ryan breastfed Violet until she
Bentley who donates to the Tory party and matriarchy, so I didn’t even consider that my was two and a half and takes her to a lot of
whose clients include Richard Branson and life might be harder as a woman.” She asserts gigs. “It wasn’t until later I found out what I
Joan Collins. In the series, she hangs out at that, at her level, most male comics are was doing is called attachment parenting.”
parties with Prince Albert of Monaco and “feminist and inclusive”. Her biggest She still makes the trip back to Ireland
easyJet’s Stelios Haji-Ioannou, and gets the professional problem has been with an ex every year for the Danny Boy karaoke. “As a
gossip on JK Rowling’s yacht. who threatened to sue her for making jokes kid, I was always proud I knew my heritage.
What has meeting so many millionaires about him cheating on her. “If that person Violet went to Ireland before Canada. She
taught her? “That just when you think you’ve says, ‘I’ll sue you for the horrible things I did’, was christened in Saint Fin Barre’s cathedral,
exceeded your wildest dream, you can do then you think, ‘You really are a massive in Cork. It meant a lot to my dad.”
anything you want, if you keep putting the prick.’ ” (He didn’t succeed because “you can’t She hesitates when I ask about her current
work in.” Ryan feels “so rich” now compared sue someone for telling the truth”.) love life. There is a guy, but he moved to Japan
to when Violet was a baby and “there were She concedes there are some things that six months ago. She has used the story in one
times I could hardly afford to eat”. She has male comics don’t have to tolerate — for of her routines. “He’s a comedian, too.” She
just bought her first home, a garden flat in instance, male Twitter fans who “can’t reckons it’s good to date funny men. “They get
Crouch End, north London, which she distinguish between a female comedian and it. Something will happen in the relationship
shares with Violet, a Tibetan spaniel, a a dominatrix”. They send her tweets saying: and they’ll go, ‘Ah, you can have that.’” Is she
Yorkshire terrier, a teacup shih tzu and a cat “Punish me, humiliate me, retweet this picture still seeing him? “I don’t like endings. That’s
named Sara Pascoe, after the comedian. She of me that’s really humiliating.” She shrugs. “I very Irish, I think. A mad optimism about the
admits she’s not good at spending money. “If don’t encounter them in real life. Thank God.” future. It’s like, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’re
I splurge, it’ll be a Thai takeaway or a taxi Currently, her material is more themed on going to make this work somehow.’”
instead of a night bus. Those are the things “the trials of being a single mum”. Violet is
that make me feel rich.” now eight, and Ryan amicably co-parents How Did You Get So Rich? will air on
She dislikes questions of the “What’s it like with her former partner, who lives down the Channel 4 in January