Comedienne Chelcie Lynn to bring alter ego ‘Trailer Trash Tammy’ to Albany

ALBANY — If you talk to comedienne Chelcie Lynn expecting a conversation with her larger-than-life alter ego “Trailer Trash Tammy,” you’ll be disappointed.

Talking up her March 25 appearance at the Albany Municipal Auditorium in an interview with The Albany Herald, Lynn was as pleasant, polite and eager-to-please as you’d expect of a prim and proper Southern lady. Of course, given the fact that the comedienne made her mark online as the vulgar, trash-talking (make that trailer-trash-talking) Tammy, one could be forgiven for going into the interview prepared for a much different conversation.

“If anything, I am a real-life Tammy, but a lot of people see me and get Chelcie Lynn mixed up with Trailer Trash Tammy,” Lynn, a native Oklahoman, said during a telephone conversation. “They get me and this character I invented mixed up.

“It’s great when I’m with family and friends that they don’t expect me to be ‘on,’ to be in character as Tammy. That’s more when I’m just out, like at Starbucks getting some coffee. Then people expect me to be that character they know from the internet.”

After creating a sensation with her Trailer Trash Tammy videos and skits on social media, Lynn was coaxed into taking her character on the road for a standup tour that has, she says, thus far been something of a whirlwind.

“I’m actually still very new to standup,” she said. “Trust me, it’s a whole different beast. But walking onto that stage is the biggest rush I’ve ever experienced.”

Lynn started her meteoric rise to fame in 2013 when she introduced Trailer Trash Tammy to audiences on the sharing app Vine. She took the character to her own YouTube Channel a couple of years later and became so popular she was signed to put together a standup routine based on the character. She started performing in bars and nightclubs in 2019.

She talked with The Albany Herald about her “2 Fingers and a 12 Pack Tour” and life as Trailer Trash Tammy.

ALBANY HERALD: That’s a big change, going from social media posts to live standup. How has the change been for you?

CHELCIE LYNN: It’s a big difference in so many ways. I’d never toured before, so I had this idea of traveling the country, seeing and exploring all the cities we went to. But it’s been nothing like that. It’s like, drive to the next town, go to the venue, do the show, move on to the next town. But the live shows are incredible. I’ve been doing standup a little more than a year now, and while I still get nervous before I walk onstage, once I get out there with the audience, it’s the biggest rush.

AH: Your character Trailer Trash Tammy has become a phenomenon. Where did she come from, and how much — if any — of Tammy is Chelcie Lynn?

CL: This character came about so randomly. I grew up in Oklahoma, and Tammy just came about from watching and listening to the people I saw. I took the look from that Charlize Theron movie “Monster” — it’s one of my favorite movies. I tried to base Tammy’s looks on her, her voice and her mannerisms. And the thing about the character is, everyone knows a Tammy. In fact, if you say you don’t know one, you probably are one. I proudly admit that I’m a real-life Tammy.

AH: I’m certain when people see you, they expect you to “be” Tammy. Does that bug you?

CL: Not really; I’ve gotten used to it. People see me out, and they call me Tammy. A lot of them probably don’t get that this is a character I do.

AH: Where does Tammy’s material come from: Is it all baked up in your head or from observations?

CL: A little of both, actually. I’ll observe stuff and kind of file it away, and then something will pop into my head and I’ll put them together and come up with a bit. I don’t really put a lot on myself to create material. I generally go with my gut.

AH: Tammy has the obnoxious Southern girl down pat. Did that come from growing up in the South?

CL: Actually, I’ve been able to adapt pretty well to wherever I am. I grew up in Oklahoma, but I lived in San Diego for 10 years before moving recently to Nashville. One thing I’m proud of is that even while living on the West Coast for 10 years, I never lost my twang. Every day out there I had people coming up to me and asking, “Where are you from?”

AH: How did you develop your eye for comedy?

CL: I just look at what’s funny to me. That’s a constant thing with me. If something happens that I think is funny, I start thinking about how I can make it into a bit (for her act). That’s something I work on all the time.

AH: Who makes you laugh?

CL: Oh, gosh, that’s a good question. I love Theo Von, and those old reruns of “Saturday Night Live” from the ’90s and early 2000s. And it may sound cheesy, but the two ladies who open for me, Tina and Libby, are hilarious. They’re way funnier than I am.

AH: When you have some down time and you’re at home with family and friends, do they put pressure on you to “be funny?”

CL: Not really with my family and friends. That’s more when I’m just out, like at Starbucks getting some coffee. Then people expect me to be that character they know. There’s no pressure from my friends and family, but people who see me in public kind of expect me to be this character.

AH: What are some of the odd things (those you can talk about) that have happened while you’re out on the road?

CL: It gets real weird sometimes. I don’t know if you can write this, but a lot of times after my show, these couples will walk up and hand me a key to their hotel room, invite me to join them. I think a lot of that is because people feel comfortable around me. A lot of them think they know me because they know the Tammy character so well. Like I said, it can get strange.

AH: What are your standup performances like? Surely Tammy is part of the show.

CL: It’s all standup. There are no skits. I do the standup as Trailer Trash Tammy. All of the stories I tell are true to Chelcie, but I tell them in Tammy’s voice.

AH: What advice would Tammy give the folks in Albany?

CL: I’m sure she’d say it in her own way, but I believe the best advice Tammy could give is to stop worrying what others think about you and be yourself.

Lynn’s performance in Albany starts at 7 p.m.

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