For Taylor Tomlinson, the Sky’s the Limit

I could start the way so many celebrity profiles do, with a breathless recounting of a fresh-faced Taylor Tomlinson bounding toward me in the lobby of 1 Hotel Central Park, a chi-chi Manhattan locale, looking radiantly off-duty in a baseball cap and jeans.

It wouldn’t be a lie. She is, indeed, fresh-faced. And while she doesn’t exactly bound, she doesn’t put on airs, either. She’s casual. Unassuming. Cool.

But starting this celeb profile with a soft-focused, Vaseline’d lens would be an insult to what Taylor has been through. It involves night terrors, panic attacks, and a crisis-line call from the Doubletree. Uncovering a bipolar disorder diagnosis via Google. A mom who died before Taylor hit double digits. 

She’s not looking for your pity: The comedian delivers these truths between sex jokes, with jaunty gesturing—jazz hands, hip swivels—funny voices, and, often, a perky ponytail. “The vagina is a dark hole,” she states in last year’s Netflix special Look At You. “Every time a new guy fingers me, that might be where the bipolar is. It’s like a mental health Pap smear. If you see any, could you scrape it out?”

It’s perhaps this juxtaposition—the perk and the provocative, the raunch and the deeply serious—that has made Taylor Tomlinson one of the youngest comedians to hit it big.

Or perhaps it’s because she’s arrived at a time when doomsday angst is no longer relegated to Terminator marathons, but built into the fabric of our everyday lives. In a (semi) post-pandemic society, Taylor’s brand of comedy hits our existential fears just so. Her best jokes blend Seinfeldian nothingness-that-we-all-experience with exactly the things we’re experiencing right now: Dark thoughts. Mental illness. Klonopin.

And it’s hilarious. And relatable. And real.

In 2023, who doesn’t ruminate about death when running alone without headphones?, Taylor asks the crowd at Radio City Music Hall. If faced with suicidal calls from two patients at the same time, would her therapist take hers? (“March Sadness, with brackets,” Taylor calls it.) Or, on a lighter note, let’s be honest about the actual reason Gilmore Girls got a revival: “Anxious people of all ages know what to expect when watching it.” (It’s true: 87% of Americans have a “comfort show.”)

These are just a few snippets from her brand-new gig, The Have It All Tour, during which Taylor pokes fun at the audience about how much more successful she is than we are. After all, most have never toured with Conan O’Brien, scored three Netflix specials, or sold out New York City at the ripe young age of 29.

“Taylor’s secret weapons are her authenticity and her bravery,” O’Brien says. “She’s not afraid to share things openly from her childhood or her adult life. She walks up to that third rail and then masterfully veers into the absurd. The point is made and the comedy is not only intact, but it shines all the brighter.”

Indeed, like Taylor Swift, “the only god I still believe in,” T. Tomlinson has extolled—this Taylor is a Taylor in her era.

Embracing Bipolar Disorder

We’re outdoors at a cafe, Taylor toggling between an OJ and a green tea (she had celebratory drinks with her team last night, and she never drinks). Wafts of marijuana from a nearby vaper weave between our words. Sandwiched between an elderly neighborhood lady and a camera crew filming in a language we can’t understand, we start talking about Taylor’s bipolar diagnosis. 

“I care a lot, and I want to say things correctly,” she explains, then continues. “[Having bipolar has] really been a non-issue in my life. But there have been a few comments that were unkind with the information. They were in personal relationships. That’s a real low blow. And that is what I was afraid of.”

Unfortunately, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Bipolar disorder isn’t rare, but it’s not common, affecting about 2.8% of U.S. adults every year. The general public seems to sorta-maybe understand bipolar’s signature symptoms: mood swings from mania (euphoric, often irrational highs) to depression (extremely low lows). But what’s often misunderstood is that, when treated, people with bipolar disorder can manage and dramatically reduce symptoms.

Throughout history, in movies, in pop culture, even in Halloween costumes, people with bipolar disorder often are portrayed as erratic and unreliable or, worse, as violent. That is very rarely true. (In the small percentages when aggressiveness does arise in people with bipolar, research shows it is typically coupled with alcohol or substance abuse or an environmental factor like poverty.)

There’s stigma around mental illness in general. But with all the fake bipolar news, this particular condition gets more than its fair share. “Stigma is one of the most common and challenging social issues that affect people living with bipolar disorder,” concluded a 2023 meta-analysis of 40 studies published in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders. 

Taylor talks confidently about mental health in her shows. But considering the inaccurate bipolar stereotypes, was she afraid to tell millions of streamers about her diagnosis in Look At You? “I was really nervous to put it out there and never be able to un-say it,” she explains. “But if you can’t share things about yourself because you’re scared people are gonna use it against you… Like, that’s the whole point of [why there’s] stigma, right?”

She was also careful not to do any additional stigmatizing. “I worked really hard on the wording of [how I shared] in the special,” she says. “I won’t even post certain clips of that bit because, out of context, it could feel like it’s bashing the diagnosis, and I never want to do that.” 

Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, when Taylor was diagnosed, another celebrity’s name came up. “They started listing names,” she explains in Look At You. “They were like, ‘You know who else is bipolar? Selena Gomez.’ And I was like, ‘That does make me feel better. She is very pretty. OK, I’ll be bipolar.’”

It’s a joke, but kinda not. “[Comedian] Maria Bamford talks about having bipolar but Maria Bamford’s a genius. At first I was like, well, I’m never gonna talk about it because I’m not a genius. That was where the Selena Gomez stuff came from, where it was like, you have to be really hot and-or a genius to be publicly mentally ill,’” she says. “If you’re, like, kind of mid like I am, which is how I felt… You’re fine. And you’re good enough. But you’re not a legend or a bombshell.” 

She pauses. “But then I was like, no, no, no, you gotta have some average people.”

Beyond the disputable validity of Taylor as “kind of mid” or “average”—she sells out iconic venues across the country—Taylor makes a good point. The more “normal” mental illness looks, the less it gets stigmatized, and the less stigma there is, the more likely people are to seek treatment. (The National Alliance on Mental Illness agrees.) For anyone who relates to her, the fact that she’s got bipolar and speaks openly about it gives others a safe place to do the same.

In fact, this happened for Taylor herself. “The year before I figured it out about myself, I had a friend who told me that they were bipolar. And I had no idea. They were like, ‘Yeah, I take my meds, and I’ve been on them for many years, and I’m good,’” she explains. “So later on, it was so helpful for me to have heard about that. And going, oh my gosh, this person’s fantastic. And so measured and balanced and doing so well.”

On Sunscreen & Insecurities

With Taylor’s 30th birthday less than a month away (November 4, if you want to send flowers), the conversation turns to age…and sunscreen. Happy to report that Taylor wears not one, but three products—moisturizer, foundation, and setting spray—with SPF.

“Ok, good,” I conclude, “because, you know, that’ll help keep your baby face.” I’m referring to her lineless, spot-less skin, but I’ve hit a nerve.

“Everyone always says that, like, ‘No, it’ll be good, you’ll look young for a long time.’ But I hate my baby face,” she responds, quickly adding, “I shouldn’t say that. Like, you really shouldn’t talk shit about yourself, because then someone else who identifies with you will go, ‘Well, see, I’m right to feel bad about that thing about myself.’ But it’s something I’ve always felt insecure about, and everybody who knows and loves me says they really like it. So I try to remember that.”

It’s human to not love every single part of yourself, I say. And that often, regarding the stuff we don’t like in ourselves, we do like in others. “That’s the thing,” she agrees. “People will bring up examples, like, ‘So-and-so has a round face,’ and I’m like, but they’re perfect.”

This type of body-acceptance honesty, the antithesis of toxic positivity, could actually help people feel better. Because, to see that Taylor Tomlinson—someone who does, in fact, almost have it all (more on that later)—still experiences feelings of insecurity and vulnerability shows just how universal these emotions are. That it’s OK, as they say, to not be OK.

In this way, I tell Taylor, she might be someone else’s Selena Gomez. “Oh, really?” she asks sweetly, legitimately caught off-guard. “That’s so nice.”

It Takes a Toolkit

Taylor tours the world while managing her health. For those of us just trying to get out of bed and onto our laptops every morning, we need deets.

“The biggest thing I’ve had to work on for the past 10 years is emotional regulation,” she says. “That’s the goal of all the things: the therapy, the meds, the diet, the exercise. Literally everything is to make it easy for me to go, ‘Breaaaathe,’” she explains. 

It was the meds, actually, that triggered Taylor’s aha moment about bipolar disorder. As she explains in Look At You, she and her doctor thought they were treating anxiety and depression. But when Taylor Googled her medication combo—a mood stabilizer, Klonopin (for panic attacks), and one more Rx (for night terrors)—“it turns out everything I’m taking is for bipolar disorder,” she says in the show. “So I went back to my psychiatrist and was like, ‘Do we think…’ and she was like, ‘Oh yeah.’”

“I see an acupuncturist who’s very good, and she’s a little more spiritual than I am. She’s always like, ‘I care about you so much,’ and I’m like, I should make eye contact with people.”

Taylor Tomlinson

Klonopin is a prescription medication called a benzodiazepine, or benzo, for short. Benzos (which also include Xanax and Valium) are the GOAT at tamping down an overactive nervous system. But because they can be addictive and are often misused, they’re considered a controlled substance.

“Klonopin’s my last resort,” Taylor says, asking if I’ve ever tried an ice pack on my chest for panic. It’s an effective move, based on the principle of cold therapy, a technique therapists often recommend for quickly relieving panic attacks or acute anxiety. 

As coping tools go, Taylor also likes weighted blankets and grounding exercises, including the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, in which you use your senses to help your body relax. “That’s what a toolbelt is for,” she says. “You go, ‘Here’s something that needs to be fixed.’ Sometimes, it’s the screwdriver [that helps]. Sometimes, it’s a hammer. That’s why you need everything.”

Learning about the mental-toolbelt concept helped Taylor come to terms with her bipolar diagnosis in 2021. Initially, “I felt like it was this thing of, like, ‘You’re different,’” she shares. “But my psychiatrist was like, ‘It’s just finding out information about yourself.’ It’s finding out where it hurts, essentially. And going like, ‘Oh, OK, the Band-Aid goes here—now we know what to do.’ What’s scary is not knowing what’s going on. The people who are having emotional difficulty and don’t [know why] can’t gather the tools, because they don’t know what they’re working on.”

Does her toolbelt contain anything “woo woo,” I ask? “Is acupuncture woo-woo?” Taylor asks back. “I see an acupuncturist who’s very good, and she’s a little more spiritual than I am,” she says. “She’s always like, ‘I care about you so much,’ and I’m like, I should make eye contact with people.”

Acupuncture is proof of the powerful link between physical and mental health. “[The acupuncturist] will put a needle in between my toes, and I’m like, ‘Why did that one hurt?’ She’s like, ‘Well, that is stress that goes up your body to this part of you,’” Taylor says. “Everything’s connected.”

That mind-body connex is also why Taylor loves to walk. “It’s very grounding,” she says. She’s either doing it around whatever city she’s touring in, or on a walking pad in her office. “Walking pads are so good, oh my God,” she says. (They resemble a treadmill without the top part.) “Now sometimes I’ll go, ‘You can only watch TikTok if you’re on a treadmill or the walking pad,’ and that’ll make it, like, a great experience.”

On the therapy front, Taylor’s tried EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy) and believes in talk therapy. She’s been seeing her current therapist for a little over three years.

“In my 20s, I felt like I was being run by my emotions. Whatever I was feeling bled through me like I was a napkin—and now I feel like…I’m a cloth napkin?” she continues. “I think I’m a lot better about it now. It doesn’t really do any good to react in the moment. It will always benefit you, even if you stay angry, to take time to make sure that it’s a grounded anger and not something that’s a fleeting reaction.”

Adulting

There’s a reason Taylor titled her current tour, running through November 18, Have It All. (It’s set to be made into a 2024 Netflix special, her third.) “Can I have it all?” she challenges the Radio City audience on a drizzly Saturday night. “This is not a bit, New York.” 

It is the big question: Does Taylor Tomlinson the person, not just the comedian, really have it all? 

“I’m acting like I’ve been together for a long time,” she tells me. “It’s just been in the past two years. Your 20s are a nightmare—you’re like, ‘I got it,’ and then you’re just a different person every year. This is the first year I feel pretty similar to where I was a year ago, but better. [Part of that is] knowing what to expect emotionally from every day.”

The other catalyst for coming into her own? Being on her own, romantically speaking. “I really needed to be by myself for a year, which is something I put off for a really long time,” she explains. “It’s kind of cliché, but when you’re jumping from relationship to relationship really quickly and not taking more than a few weeks or months off in between, you don’t have time to process things and learn from them. You roll into [other] things to distract, and it keeps you from working on yourself, because you’re always working on your relationship.”

 “I don’t like when people act like they did a spell.” (A beat.) “What do you think about being delusional?”

Taylor Tomlinson

And then this salient point: “When you’re on your own, therapy’s all about you every week. Every day is about keeping me all right and not hoping somebody else takes care of me.”

When she started working on Have It All, she continues, “I was sort of pretending that I liked being on my own. And now I actually mean it, which makes it better. I also think it’s honest and vulnerable about the fact that, like, you do want both sides of life, you do want to be fulfilled in your career and you do want to be fulfilled in love and relationships.”

It’s funny that such a basic truth feels so refreshing. In a culture that hailed the #girlboss with such ferocious force that girl bosses everywhere subsequently burnt out, we should be able to acknowledge the natural desire for a relationship without it diminishing our ambition or our worth as a person.

Perhaps for Taylor, the question has morphed from having it all to, “Am I OK to want what I want?” or “to be where I am?” She’s realized that yes, it is OK—just in the same way it’s OK to have bipolar. “I was always kind of like, ‘I could be alone if I had to,’ but really I was afraid to be,” she says. “In the same way I was afraid to do standup. You have to prove to yourself you can do it. But once you do it enough, you’re like, ‘I’m good.’ I’m at peace.”

Speaking of peace: “Have you seen the girls on TikTok who are like ‘I protected my peace too well and now I have no friends’?” she asks. “I’m not there, but I really relate to them.”

Generally, though, that area of her life is going well. “I do feel very fulfilled in my work and my friendships and my family,” Taylor says.

Her fam includes her dad, stepmom, and three siblings—oh, and an American Girl doll that O’Brien bought for Taylor when they were touring together. “I haven’t seen that American Girl doll in four years and I do worry about that child,” O’Brien says. “I have no doubt that Taylor could be an incredible mother, but I honestly never once saw her feed that kid or even comb her hair.  Often, instead of putting her quietly to bed, she’d hurl that little angel into a corner of the tour bus and take off for the nearest club. I’ve called child services several times, but they keep telling me, ‘Sir—it’s a plastic doll!’”

This brings us back to that other area of Taylor’s life, a relationship…“I feel ready for [the relationship] piece,” she says. “But I also am OK to wait if I have to. I don’t want to get into a relationship until I’m very, very sure.”

Of course, if the right person came along…“My friend,” she shares, “pointed out that Amal met George Clooney when she was 35.” Her point, it seems, is she has time to define the “all” she wants to have.

Building a Bright (Lights) Future

What is it about the name Taylor? It does connote a certain sparkle. Beyond Swift and Tomlinson, there’s Momsen and Lautner. For the millennials, Kitsch and Schilling. For the oldies, Dayne. There’s even a Hanson brother named Taylor. 

As for this Taylor, what’s next? Will she, like the rest of TikTok, be taking care of her inner child? (“It’s a focus this year.”) Get Botox like all her friends? (“I’m scared I’ll have a reaction.”) Embrace the return of cargo pants? (“I am so glad cargo pants came back. I didn’t have baggy clothes growing up. We had the beneath-your-pubic-bone pants. We had a zipper this big [she makes a tiny gesture between her thumb and index finger]. We’re still traumatized.”)

Will she, final Q, always be a comedian? “Yeah. I don’t have any other skills.”

But that’s not true. Taylor is skilled at showing the world that you can have a mental health disorder and still thrive. And that is no small deal. In that 2023 study on bipolar stigma, the authors suggest that one of the best ways to reduce stigma is by “amending public attitudes toward bipolar disorder.” For a so-called mid, Taylor’s stigma-busting comedy seems pretty genius to me. 

We’re about to wrap when Taylor asks me a question. 

Taylor: “How do you feel about manifesting?”

Me: “If you actually take action beyond the manifesting and take steps to make it happen, yes.”

Taylor: “Right, it’s not really manifesting. It’s motivating and keeps [your goal] in front of your brain. I like that assessment of it. I don’t like when people act like they did a spell.” (A beat.) “What do you think about being delusional?”

Me: “Oh, delulu?” (It’s the latest TikTok trend.)

Taylor: “Yeah, that’s kind of manifesting. To me, it feels similar.”

Me: “I like that assessment, because it’s better than, ‘I’m delusional.’” 

Taylor: “I don’t like delusional.”

Me: “It’s more like a step beyond optimism.” (We get up to leave.) “Well, I wish all the best delulu things for you.”

Of course, I’m not sure Taylor Tomlinson needs even my best wishes. She’s built a reality that does more than just pay the bills (and then some). Her reality is based not in hiding the darkest parts of herself—the childhood traumas, the confusion of a diagnosis, the fear of being alone—but in holding them out honestly, and vulnerably, under the very bright lights of a public stage. And that, friends, may be the truest secret to having it all.

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Photographer: George Chinsee
Stylist:  Andrew Gelwicks for The Only Agency
Hairstylist: Jason Linkow
Makeup Artist: Moani Lee