Rebecca O'Neal (born 1987) is an American comedian and writer. She gained prominence performing stand-up comedy in her hometown of Chicago. O'Neal was featured on an episode of ''Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring'', ''

2 Dope Queens ''2 Dope Queens'' is a podcast hosted by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson that aired between April 4, 2016, and November 14, 2018. For the first seven days following the podcast's launch, it was number one on the iTunes podcast charts. It ...

'', and '' Easy''.

Life and career

O'Neal was born and raised on the southwest side of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. She was raised in an Evangelical Christian household. After high school she enrolled at

Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a Private college, private art college in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, it has 5,928https://about.colum.edu/effectiveness/pdf/spring-2021-student-profile.pdf students pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergra ...

and later dropped out, after which she worked as an event promoter for local rappers and music artists. She started her comedy career as a writer for outlets such as '' Splitsider'',

Gawker ''Gawker'' is an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City focusing on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in ...

, '' Vanity Fair'', and

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

. In 2012, she transitioned to performing stand-up and began performing at open mic night at Cole's in Chicago. After she became a steady performer, she hosted shows at Cole's, the Laugh Factory, and a comedy special on WCIU. Her sets span a range of topics such as fashion, pop culture, sex, and

quantum particle In quantum field theory, the energy that a particle has as a result of changes that it causes in its environment defines self-energy \Sigma, and represents the contribution to the particle's energy, or effective mass, due to interactions between ...

theories. She also tests material out on her

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account. O'Neal opened shows for and toured with Maria Bamford,

Janeane Garofalo Janeane Marie Garofalo ( ; born September 28, 1964) is an American comedian, actress, and former co-host on the now-defunct Air America Radio's ''The Majority Report''. Garofalo began her career as a stand-up comedian and became a cast member on ...

, Arsenio Hall,

Hannibal Buress Hannibal Amir Buress ( , born February 4, 1983) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper and writer. He started performing comedy in 2002 while attending Southern Illinois University. He starred on Adult Swim's ''The Eric Andre Show'' f ...

Roy Wood Jr. Roy Norris Wood Jr. (born December 11, 1978) is an American humorist, stand-up comedy, stand-up comedian, radio personality, actor, producer, podcaster, and writer best known for his correspondent appearances on ''The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ...

, Michael Che, and

W. Kamau Bell Walter Kamau Bell (born January 26, 1973) is an American stand-up comic and television host. He has hosted the CNN series ''United Shades of America'' since 2016, and hosted FXX television series ''Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell'' from 2012 ...

, and also performed at the

Bridgetown Comedy Festival The Bridgetown Comedy Festival is a stand-up comedy festival located in the Hawthorne district of Portland, Oregon that took place every spring from 2008 to 2017, featuring standup comedy showcases, live podcasts, panel discussions and improv comed ...

. In 2016, she quit her day job to pursue comedy full-time. That year, she headlined a show at the Laugh Factory where she hosted several shows a week. In 2017, O'Neal relocated to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. She was on an episode of Netflix's ''Easy'' performing as herself, and she was also featured on the HBO series ''

''. In 2020 and 2022, O'Neal was a featured comic on ''Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring''.

Personal life

O'Neal is queer. She resides in

References

External links

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Rebecca O'Neal
on Twitter {{DEFAULTSORT:ONeal, Becca 1987 births Living people African-American female comedians American women comedians American stand-up comedians Comedians from Illinois 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people