Adrienne Iapalucci is offensive, she’s irreverent, she’s funny and she’s from the Bronx. The Morris Park native has built a successful career in comedy over the past 20 years—recently with her Netflix special “The Dark Queen,” and the Bronx Times caught up with her at a show Wednesday in Manhattan at the Comedy Shop in the Village.
There was little rhyme or reason to the lineup preceding Iapalucci, but the Bronx badass was clearly the main attraction. With no apologies and a deadpan delivery, Iapalucci elicited big laughs, but more notable were the moments when laughing came with tinge of guilt, the feeling of, “I’m a bad person for laughing at this.”
It’s a central theme to Iapalucci’s Netflix special, “The Dark Queen” released in November of 2024, which she opens by telling the audience, “I’m not a good person,” before launching into 52 minutes of fearless, dark, no‑holds‑barred comedy. No topic is off limits—from 9/11 to Israel and Palestine to Puerto Ricans in the Bronx and the Holocaust; it’s all fodder for Iapalucci’s unflinching approach to comedy and commentary.
She told the Bronx Times that growing up in the borough gave her the grit she needed to stick it out in stand up.
“ It’s the same thing in comedy where it’s very tough to survive,” Iapalucci said. “So if you grow up like that, you could kind of thrive in this environment because it’s so dysfunctional and you don’t realize that it’s not healthy.”
Iapalucci combined absurd anecdotes from her life growing up in Morris Park with sharp, intelligent and timely social commentary. She seamlessly weaves back and forth through stories about her Italian family— like their completely petty yet hilariously relatable feud with their Spanish neighbors and pivots to complex political and social issues like religion or the problem with school shootings in America.
Iapalucci recognizes that sometimes her style of comedy, which often laughs at something very serious or even painful “isn’t for everybody.”
“ I’m not trying to offend people,” Iapalucci said. “I want them to laugh and have a good time, but if they don’t, that’s also okay too.”
With two decades of stand-up under her belt, including a breakthrough semifinalist run on Last Comic Standing and the release of her debut comedy album “Baby Skeletons” in 2020, Iapalucci is no stranger to the stage. Her latest, “The Dark Queen” had her collaborate with comedy legend Louis C.K. as Director.
“ I’ve gotten lucky,” Iapalucci said. “I’ve had some big comics that have helped me out.”
She said she hopes that people in the borough are willing to watch and support a Bronx native.
“It felt good to put out something that I was proud of, and I just hope people like it,” Iapaluccia said. “If they don’t, that’s okay.”
