Melanie Bracewell (born July 19, 1995) is a New Zealand comedian, actress and scriptwriter. In 2018, Bracewell won New Zealand's

Billy T Award The Billy T Award is a New Zealand comedy award recognizing up-and-coming New Zealand comedians with outstanding potential. It has been presented annually since its inception in 1997 when Cal Wilson and Ewen Gilmour shared the award. The Billy T ...

Life and career

Bracewell grew up in Beach Haven in Auckland's North Shore, and is a niece of Test cricketers

John Bracewell John Garry Bracewell (born 15 April 1958) is a former New Zealand cricketer who was most recently the coach of the Irish national team. He played 41 Test matches between 1980 and 1990, as well as 53 One Day Internationals. He was the second N ...

and Brendon Bracewell. Bracewell attended

Birkenhead College Birkdale is a suburb of the contiguous Auckland metropolitan area located in New Zealand. It comprises statistical area units such as 'Birkdale North' and 'Birkdale South'. The suburb is located in the North Shore, and is under the governance ...

, serving as Deputy Head Girl, then studied Communication and Media Studies at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

. Bracewell became interested in comedy as a child and, as a teenager, wrote a comedic blog, later moving into stand-up comedy. Bracewell also worked as producer of the breakfast show on

Radio Hauraki Radio Hauraki is a New Zealand rock music station that started in 1966. It was the first private commercial radio station of the modern broadcasting era in New Zealand and operated illegally until 1970 to break the monopoly held by the state-o ...

and appeared as a contestant on the Australian TV quiz show ''

Have You Been Paying Attention? ''Have You Been Paying Attention?'' (abbreviated on social media as HYBPA? and stylised on-screen as Have you been paying attention? in sentence case) is an Australian panel game television quiz show on Network 10. The series, which is produce ...

''. She co-hosts the Australian comedy television show ''The Cheap Seats'' alongside

Tim McDonald Timothy McDonald (born January 6, 1965) is a former college and professional American football player who was a strong safety in the National Football League (NFL) for thirteen seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. McDonald played college footba ...

. In 2019, Bracewell began writing for the TV show '' The Project'' in New Zealand. She has also written for the series ''

Wellington Paranormal ''Wellington Paranormal'' is a New Zealand mockumentary comedy horror television series which first aired on 11 July 2018 on TVNZ 2. The series is a spin-off of the 2014 film '' What We Do in the Shadows'' and first television series in the fran ...

''. In 2020, Bracewell received international coverage when videos and photos of her impersonating Prime Minister

Jacinda Ardern Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern ( ; born 26 July 1980) is a New Zealand politician who has been serving as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and leader of the Labour Party since 2017. A member of the Labour Party, she has been the member of ...

went viral. Ardern responded with: "You do my makeup better than I do." Bracewell and Ardern later met and posted a

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version o ...

video while Bracewell was dressed as Ardern.

Recognition

In 2014, Bracewell won 7 Days Comedy Apprentice; the following year she won the Raw Comedy Quest and in 2016 won Best Auckland Newcomer at the

New Zealand International Comedy Festival {{Short description, Annual comedy festival in New Zealand The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is held simultaneously over three weeks during April/May in Auckland and Wellington. From its beginnings as a 2-day event, the Festival has n ...

. In 2018, Bracewell received the

for the country's best emerging comedian. The same year she won Breakthrough Comedian of the Year at the NZ Comedy Guild Awards. In 2019, she was short-listed for the Kevin Smith Memorial Cup for Outstanding Artist Achievement, Best Female Comedian and Bizarre Moment of the Year at the New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards.

Acting

In 2020, Bracewell starred as Karen in ''The Eggplant'', a New Zealand

teen drama In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

crime-comedy series released to

TVNZ OnDemand TVNZ+ ( mi, Te Reo Tātaki Ā-Tono), formerly known as TVNZ OnDemand, is an online New Zealand television and video on demand streaming service offered by TVNZ. It offers a variety of free content, such as news updates and programmes seen on TVN ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Controversy

In 2019, Bracewell shared a screenshot on her Twitter account of a sexually explicit message which she said had come unprompted from someone in the

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...

cricketing community. A Reddit user later found a post from Bracewell in a

subreddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

soliciting sexual messages. A moderator from the Reddit cricketing community then contacted Bracewell asking her for details of who sent her the private message. She subsequently apologised and admitted her post was a joke. After her apology she received criticism on social media, with some accusing her of lying about sexual harassment and stereotyping Indians.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bracewell, Melanie Living people New Zealand comedians New Zealand women comedians New Zealand stand-up comedians People from North Shore, New Zealand 1995 births