She's renowned for her lightning fast wit and endearing candor in her stand-up comedy, and Joanne McNally brings the same light touch and realism to talking about the less funny parts of her life.
The Irishwoman has become one of the most successful and popular comedians working in the UK and Irish comedy circuits today, thanks to her record-breaking tour The Prosecco Express and her co-hosting slot with Vogue Williams on their podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me.
But speaking to Miriam O'Callaghan on her radio show Sunday with Miriam yesterday, the star explained how no part of her ascent to the top of the comedy circuit was planned. In fact, her struggles with an eating disorder* when she was younger almost prevented her from reaching those heights.
McNally recalled her struggle to find her feet in a calling around that time, having gone to university to do English and Sociology and wanting to write but lacking the confidence to do it.
"I was kind of circling the plug hole of an eating disorder for a very long time", she explained, "and then once I got into mainstream employment and realised this was my life and this was an adult [life] and I felt very unfulfilled by that whole thing."
After that she "went straight down the plughole, because it was something to do", she said.
"I think I wanted to be successful at something, and then I didn't have the confidence to go into the writing. The acting, I never did anything about the acting. I was quite suggestable. If I had an idea for something and someone would tell me, 'oh I don't think you'd like that', I'd be like, 'okay grand, well what else will I do?'
"I just decided being thin, that would be my job."
Soon after, she left her job in PR and moved back to her mother's house, a shift that, while incredibly difficult, led her to chasing her dreams.
"[The eating disorder] took over to the point where I kind of had to press eject on my life", she said.
"Which in hindsight was actually a blessing because that meant I had to recalibrate completely, and if I hadn't had to recalibrate completely, I never would have ended up doing acting and I never would have gotten into stand up and I wouldn't be sitting here, and I love my life so much and I love my job so much.
"I feel so, so lucky and it kind of freaks me out when I think of all the little sliding door moments that bring you. It was never a plan."
She acknowledged that eating disorders are incredibly complicated illnesses: "I think a lot of it is cultural, I think a lot of it's obviously your upbringing, I think a lot of it's how you see yourself.
"The thing that really frustrated me was, I don't understand why it's such a big deal to me, why can't I just eat like a normal person anymore? Why is everyone else out during the summer drinking wine and eating ice creams down the pier and I'm just inside worrying about sucking calories out of the air?"
After undergoing treatment for the eating disorder and years of therapy, McNally came to understand that it was the way her brain had been "rewired" to think about food and her body image. She said that therapy "worked wonders" for rewiring it back.
"Once you overcome it, the release you have on the other side of it is, it's life-changing."
Speaking about her incredible rise to success in the last few years, McNally puts it down to timing and luck, noting how her work got traction after the Covid-19 lockdowns.
"People were kind of forced to listen to people because there was nothing else to do", she said.
"We were like rabid animals, we would have gone and watched a duck blow drying its wings. Like, anything!"
"I don't have a family, and that's not a 'poor me', but I don't have a partner, I don't have kids, which means I'm just free to just work. I just work."
McNally is back on the road with a new tour, Pinotphile, with tickets available now.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
