Comedian Jeff Ross — aka the "Roastmaster General," who's participated in televised roasts of celebrities like Justin Bieber, Tom Brady and Joan Rivers — is not easily offended. "I have a bunch of wackos in my family," Ross explains.
Ross was raised in New Jersey in a tight-knit Jewish family. His great-grandmother founded the popular catering hall Clinton Manor, known for its weddings and bar mitzvahs. Growing up, Ross worked there parking cars, manning coat check, rolling meatballs, making fruit cups — doing whatever was needed.
"I played high school football but I had red fingernails from the [maraschino] cherries that I put on the fruit cups," he says. "Everyone thought I was wearing nail polish, and since I was the center, the punt center, they all stared at my hands. So there were a lot of funny crossovers."
Ross says his experiences at the catering hall allowed him to interact with a variety of people: "The servers were all Scottish and Irish. There were Haitian people, there were Hungarian people, there were French people who worked there. So I got a real mix of ethnic humor and different senses of humor. It was a very enriching time."
As "Roastmaster," Ross makes people laugh by insulting the guest of honor, as well as the other roasters. But his new Netflix comedy special, Take a Banana for the Ride, is more personal and autobiographical. In it, he reflects on his family and childhood — including the loss of his mother, who died of cancer when he was a teen, and his father, who died of an aneurysm five years later. He also talks about his alopecia diagnosis and his recent battle with stage-three colon cancer.
"My health is 100%. … I just had my chemo port removed," he says. "It's really important for people to know that I'm doing OK — I'm doing better than OK. ... To the people listening who are going through chemo: You can do it."
Interview highlights
On what his bar mitzvah was like
My bar mitzvah was like something between a Super Bowl halftime show and something Saddam Hussein would throw for one of his kids. Every favor of New Jersey was called in — the best band, the best florist, the best of everything. It was like my dad, my mom, they really went all out for my bar mitzvah. It's a core memory for me. … People are still talking about it. The desserts, the cheesecake, the babka. It was a beautiful bar mitzvah. I remember the first three words of my Haftorah — so religion, it was not the focus for us. It was always cultural, like Jewish pride, Jewish strength, Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish laughter. That was sort of my upbringing.
On watching his mom die from leukemia when he was a teen
It was hard to see somebody so tough and who was so full of laughter — such a positive person — suffer, and maybe realize that life is very unpredictable. And all of us are responsible for our own happiness.
While she was in the hospital, I was playing football, washing my uniform every night and making my own dinner and just being a good boy. We couldn't visit her very often because the hospital was in New York and we lived in New Jersey. So I would write her letters and that was a big part of my mission to cheer her up.
I just wanted to get my hours in, my five minute increments of just expressing myself, talking about whatever I wanted. It was so cool, like, mind boggling to me. It was punk rock, it was free speech.Jeff Ross
On finding comedy
I tried it and I loved it right away. Not since karate had I felt ... a connection to something. I was obsessed where I could do it all day, every day. And that was it. I was trying to get on stage three, four times a night, if I could. I just wanted to get my hours in, my five minute increments of just expressing myself, talking about whatever I wanted. It was so cool, like, mind boggling to me. It was punk rock, it was free speech.
On being his grandfather's caregiver in his early 20s
Here I was, a recent college graduate, living with my 79-year-old roommate who happened to be my best friend for my whole life. As hard as it was, it was also kind of great. I loved him. We had fun. We ate every meal together. All my friends became his friends. We were both single. I was 23 and he was 79. And he would meet women at the senior center. "I'm the only one that can drive at night," he would say. That's how he would meet these women. He would just talk about his girlfriends and dates and encounters. And I would talk about mine. And we were almost like brothers. ...
He was a retired construction worker from the Bronx, like a real blue-collar, Jewish tough guy, patriotic but cynical. I loved living with him. It didn't feel like a burden until sometimes it just was. He got sicker and sicker. He'd hallucinate, and I would take him to his doctor appointments every day. And then at night I would try to go into New York. I would take the bus or drive into New York and try to get on stage. And he would always give me a few dollars for the bus and a banana. "Take a banana for the ride." That's where the title, the inspiration for the show comes. To him, it was like a tough guy's way of saying, "I love you. I can't go with you, but I'm on this journey with you no matter what."
On his life-changing Letterman debut April 13, 1995
I don't remember many dates, but getting the call to be on Letterman when he had just got No. 1 at that prime-time slot was a big, big deal in my business. … I'm in LA, and boom, somebody canceled, Letterman show's calling, you gotta catch the red eye from LA, you're coming back to New York, the Ed Sullivan Theater tomorrow. I flew all night. I landed in New York, and there I was in the makeup chair next to Bob Costas and Penn & Teller and it was so cool.
I just barely had time to call my Aunt Donna and my sister and tell them I was going to be on Letterman tonight and Paul Shaffer and the band played ["Rock and Roll All Nite"] by Kiss, which was my request, and I ran out to my mark in my one good suit that I had just bought for a friend's wedding, luckily. I came out all cylinders firing away, my five minutes. I did my seven or eight best jokes, and it was just like, "Is this for real? They're laughing at everything." ... The audience just was rooting for me and I was just sort of [in] what they call a flow state.
On living with alopecia
I had this big bushy 'fro. I was making jokes about it every night. And then all within a few weeks, everything fell out. And then if that wasn't weird enough, my eyelashes and my eyebrows. So I just looked so differently. Whatever celebrity, if I was gonna get noticed, it was all gone. So it was very rattling, emotionally. I was trying to put makeup on my eyebrows, I was wearing hats and sunglasses, and I was saying I was doing it for a role. Going bald is one thing, but people thinking that I was sick or weak, for some reason, that really bothered me. That went against my grain. Like, it's hard to go out and be the funny guy if everybody thinks you're fragile.
It took a while to accept it and, as I say, kind of channel my inner rock star, in my case, Pitbull, I guess, and be OK with how I look and understand that looks aren't everything. It's how you own it and carry yourself. And it's sort of like another story of ... resilience and bouncing back.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Clare Lombardo adapted it for the web.
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