As Roz Laws finds out, there’s no hiding under the covers for new divorcee, comic Shappi Khorsandi.
What do you do if you’re a comedian going through a painful divorce? You get up on stage and tell everyone all about it.
At least that’s Shappi Khorsandi’s solution. She has found that laughter really is the best medicine to help her through a difficult marriage break-up.
She is, however, mindful of the son they share and makes it clear that she won’t use her act as way of publicly criticising her soon-to-be ex-husband.
In that way, she points out, she’s rather different from the likes of glamour model Jordan.
“We are quite compassionate to each other, not like Jordan,” says Shappi.
“I have never seen such bile and hatred coming from a woman. She’s got three kids and should be thinking of how the way she talks will affect them.
“I regard my husband as the father of my child, and as such I don’t want to do anything to hurt him. When I look at Jordan, I think I’m doing OK! Maybe I could give her lessons in how to divorce.”
Jordan, aka Katie Price, has been through two divorces – to Peter Andre and Alex Reid – in just two years.
Shappi separated from fellow comedian Christian Reilly last year after five years of marriage but they are still in the process of divorcing. They have a three-year-old son, Cassius.
“The paperwork is dragging on, but I do feel better about the situation than I did,” reveals the 37-year-old.
“When we first split I was in such pain, I couldn’t talk about anything else on stage. I was in the eye of the storm.
“I’m more at peace with it now and I don’t talk about it as personally as I used to. It’s not all ‘Help me, my heart has been drop-kicked into a lake of fire’.
“I am still heartbroken, but I hope I can be funnier about the divorce now.
“I am friends with my husband and we have a rule not to say anything in our acts that the other person isn’t happy with. We don’t want our son to grow up and see his parents slagging each other off on YouTube.
“I invited his representatives, his five best friends, to see the show and they said it was fine and not to take anything out.”
Shappi was born in Tehran but brought up in London, after her family was forced to flee Iran after the Islamic revolution. They received death threats after her poet father criticised Ayatollah Khomeini.
She appears on TV and radio shows like Question Time, Have I Got News For You and Just A Minute. She was one of Michael McIntyre’s guests at his Comedy Roadshow from Birmingham but reveals an earlier visit to the city sticks in her mind.
