Grace O’Malley Is More Than A Joint Act

Grace O’Malley isn’t just having a day, like her Instagram bio suggests. Rather, she’s having a year. Her stand-up career is taking off: she just wrapped a tour with her best friend and PlanBri Uncut co-host Brianna LaPaglia and on Sept. 28 she will embark on another with comedian Whitney Cummings. The best part? She manifested it all.

“I hate New Year’s Eve. So at the beginning of the year, I went away by myself,” the 25-year-old says. “This is super corny, but I wrote down some manifestations. That’s not something I would normally do, but I thought, ‘You know what? People who do this seem happier. I could really use that right now.’”

Looking back, most of the goals she jotted down during her trip to Hawaii came true. “I put a crazy one on there, getting my face on a billboard. And this year, PlanBri had a billboard in Times Square,” O’Malley says of the ad that Amazon Music brought to life in April. “We didn't ask for that... so basically I'm a witch.”

Witchcraft aside, O’Malley is now gravitating toward the comedy world, one set at a time. Though the Boston native has been cracking jokes on Barstool’s PlanBri Uncut podcast since she joined the company in April 2022, committing to her stand-up career is a more recent undertaking.

I was so stoked to go more into comedy, because I never really liked the whole influencer thing.

“Before, I’d do the one-off show,” she says of her work on stage. That changed in February when Cummings went on PlanBri and asked O’Malley to open for her Big Baby tour on the spot. Originally, she thought Cummings was just being friendly — after all, she’d never seen O’Malley perform before. It wasn’t until the veteran comedian followed up on the offer that O’Malley realized she was serious. “That really put the fire under my *ss,” she says. “I needed that push, or else I would have just been coasting.”

O’Malley’s career doesn’t fit into most people’s definitions of “coasting.” She moved to New York City in the fall of 2020, when “rent was so cheap.” “When I ran out of money from my summer ice cream job, I was like, ‘I have to make money, or I'll have to go back home,” she says. She started work as a DoorDasher on foot, while developing her stand-up and appearing as an early guest on PlanBri.

Two and a half years later, O’Malley signed on to work at Barstool full-time. “Barstool almost felt like high school when I first started — everybody says that. The people that were already there are the upperclassmen, and then you're coming in as the freshman,” she says. “It’s so fun to work there. At the same time, it's corporate. It feels like an after-school club, but with HR.”

O’Malley is still at Barstool, but she’s making time for new comedy projects. In July, she teamed up with comedian Daniela Mora for a weekly set called “Slap Happy” at The Stand, a comedy club in New York City. She’s also gearing up for a solo comedy tour next spring.

When it got to the point it felt almost fraudulent to ignore it, we had to address it.

O’Malley now finds herself with 750,000 followers on TikTok and over 200,000 on Instagram, which comes with its own challenges and opportunities. “I'm just me through and through, really,” she says of her life online. “That's the thing I hate about a lot of people that do social media. It's like they forget what they were doing before.”

Despite having New York City as a home base for the past four years, O’Malley is open about not feeling at home in the city’s influencer scene. “I really don't like that whole world. It's silly,” she says. “That's also why I was so stoked to go more into comedy, because I never really liked the whole influencer thing.” In 2022, she wrote a blog post for Barstool on how the nycinfluencersnark Reddit “did not disappoint.” (Despite its snarky roots, that same subreddit page often has comments about rooting for O’Malley’s success.) In her own words, “I'm not too keen on drama, but I love gossip.”

Though she tends to avoid drama, that hasn’t stopped fans and followers from creating some. In May, O’Malley and LaPaglia addressed rumors they had a falling out in a podcast episode titled “The Truth About Our Friendship.” They explained that growing in different directions and a lack of communication were to blame for the tension listeners were picking up on.

“We haven't fought since we were in high school. It was tricky because there were a lot of moving parts to it, and people started to point out that we were acting differently towards each other,” she says about releasing that episode. “When it got to the point it felt almost fraudulent to ignore it, we had to address it."

Being honest and vulnerable in comedy is my version of therapy.

Now, it’s safe to say that O’Malley and LaPaglia have cleared the air. On Sept. 15, they wrapped up their That’s My Best Friend Tour, and O’Malley has nothing but good things to say about working with her best friend on PlanBri. “It's a dream job. It's really cool,” she says. A few weeks after we talked, she and LaPaglia posted a TikTok together. “When you realize,” LaPaglia started, before O’Malley cut in, “Everyone was trying to pit us against each other, you dumb f*cks.”

Living out your life — including the messy moments — so publicly might not be for everyone, but O’Malley’s gotten really good at it. “Being honest is kind of my whole thing,” she says. (So, no, her Boston accent is not fake, no matter what Casey Affleck says.) Plus, O’Malley knows her best content comes from her life experiences — especially the sh*tty ones. “That’s how I craft a joke, like, ‘That was a bummer, but it sure is comedy.’” A stand-up clip where she jokes about being “built like a linebacker” — and her mom heckles her by adding, “It’s a bad gene on your father’s side” — has over 1.7 million views.

Much of O’Malley’s success so far has come as part of a joint act, and it’s easy to see why. She’s so easy to riff with that our scheduled 30-minute conversation lasts for over an hour. Whether she’s opening for a comedy legend, bantering with her longtime friend, or co-hosting a show at The Stand, she works well in a pair.

But with her solo tour coming up next year, O’Malley is standing on her own — and chances are, she’ll be just as candid as ever. “Being honest and vulnerable in comedy is my version of therapy,” she says. “That’s what makes you authentic. Who are you, if you're not just being yourself?”