The Just For Laughs Festival just announced the winners of its 2018 awards show recipients. This year they're celebrating the work of Tiffany Haddish, Hannah Gadsby, Jo Koy, Lil Rel Howery, and Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. The awards celebrate everything from stand-up comedian of the year, breakout star, best special, best writers
Comedy Person of the Year: Tiffany Haddish - let's face it, it's Tiffany's year, we're just living in it. From breakout movie roles, late night TV appearances that left us howling, commercials, roles on TV, and other celebs raving about her. Tiffany Haddish is a force that will last beyond just this one year.
Comedy Special Of The Year: Hannah Gadsby Nanette - Nanette seems to be all anyone in the comedy world is talking about these last few weeks. A self-proclaimed swan song 10th special, Gadsby takes aim at her experience in comedy dealing from toxic culture and the concept of self-deprication.
Stand-up Comedian Of The Year: Jo Koy - He spent a lot of the year on the road and when he hit Honolulu, he set a record for 11 sold-out shows and selling 23,000 tickets in the process.
Breakout Comedy Star Of The Year: Lil Rel Howery - He has a new sitcom hitting FOX this year, starred in the Academy-Award winning film, Get Out, and stand-up special on Comedy Central that was produced by Kevin Hart. Oh, and he and other recipient Tiffany Haddish not only portrayed ex-husband and wife on The Carmichael Show, they just opened the movie, Uncle Drew this summer.
Comedy Writers of the Year: Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch - The writing duo behind Netflix' breakout show GLOW. Flahive has also written/exec-produced on all 6 seasons of Nurse Jackie. Before creating GLOW, Carly Mensch was a Supervising Producer on ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, as well as a writer on Nurse Jackie then a Supervising producer on Weeds.
The 11th annual Awards Show, will be hosted by Alonzo Bodden and take place on Friday, July 27 at 3:00pm in the Grand Salon Opera, Hyatt Regency Montréal during the festival.