Brash and bold and a wee bit berserk, Katt Williams—the indomitable king of club comedy—has, for years, proven he can’t be stopped. Or fully understood. Devin Friedman gets in the head of the most mysterious funnyman in America.
It’s not that he wouldn’t answer, he told me, but that he couldn’t. Because he doesn’t have an actual age. We’d already been together for the better part of two days, and by now I knew he meant this literally.
Evening was coming on in Miami, and we were, the two of us, shut in his assistant’s bedroom in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne. Williams was pacing, orbiting the room like a shark. He was wearing a baseball hat. He was wearing pool slides. He was holding a Newport that maybe he’d smoke soon.
Outside, a storm had moved up the coast, and all we could hear from the window now was a whisper of surf.
But the Internet, I told him, says you’re 46.
“Please don’t get any of your information from Wikipedia, sir,” he replied crisply.
I can understand it if Katt Williams feels like he can’t trust the Internet. It’s part of a whole sociocultural-legal infrastructure that he feels isn’t interested in understanding the truth, or him. Katt Williams, you should know, is a comic icon. Have you seen Pimp Chronicles Part 1? Or Part 2? Or his new Netflix special? Have you been to one of his thousands of shows in the past decade or so? If you have, you know that Katt became a legend without broadening or diluting himself to become more “mainstream,” which is unusual. But if you look for Katt Williams on the Internet, what you’ll mostly find are stories of weird and purportedly criminal shit he’s done, as well as a lot of people searching “Is Katt Williams still alive?”
This story is from the June 2018 edition of GQ.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2018 edition of GQ.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
SHABOOZEY THE BIG SHA BANG
Shaboozey spent months at the tippy-top of the charts with a hit song about dealing with hard times the easy way: by hitting the bar. He sang on a couple songs with Beyoncé too. So we asked the one and only SHANIA TWAIN to help country's biggest new star make sense of his explosive year.
HANNAH EINBINDER BORN STANDING UP
With her star turn on Hacks, the comic turned actor has established herself as one of Hollywood's most exciting young talents-much to her own surprise.
Katt Williams The Man Who Opened The Portal
In January, the comic delivered an instantly iconic podcast interview that threw pop culture into crisis-and seemed to predict all manner of messy celebrity gossip to come. At home on his farm, Williams explains why he said what he said— and why he'd do it again, and again, and again....
JOHN DAVID & MALCOLM WASHINGTON A NEW HOLLYWOOD DYNASTY
The Washington brothers built their careers apart—until an irresistible project drew them together. In The Piano Lesson, they tackle a father's thorny legacy.
FUTURE & METRO BOOMIN'S HISTORIC Hit STREAK
What happens when the best rapper alive reunites with the hottest producer of the moment? You get a back-to-back-to-back run unlike any since the Beatles.
PHARRELL WILLIAMS Designer of the Year
Riding along from Paris to Hollywood to New York with the Louis Vuitton *men's creative director, whose prolific and often prophetic contributions to fashion, film, and music have once again thrust him to the center of the pop culture Venn diagram.
JOHN MULANEY. KID GORGEOUS GROWS UP
After immortalizing the whirlwind of the past four yearsrelapse, intervention, recovery-in his awardwinning standup special, John Mulaney has emerged as one of the most popular comedians on earth. For his next trick, he's embracing his surprising new role as a suburban dad.
DWAYNE JOHNSON THE WORLD'S BIGGEST Actor
It's hard for Dwayne Johnson to hide. Wherever he goes, there he is― as conspicuous out in the world as he is on the silver screen. But after two decades of playing a version of himself in huge movies, suddenly Dwayne Johnson is ready to do something entirely new: vanish.
How the WNBA Became the Most Fun, Complicated, and Exciting League in Sports
Caitlin Clark! A'ja Wilson! Angel Reese! This year, women's hoops emerged as a dominant popcultural force. But the road to sports-league supremacy has been long and winding. This is the inside story of how the W finally broke through.
A Companion for Your Wrist
Audemars Piguet's new release with artist Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS, brings high-art hype to the world of pop-watch collabs.
