When "Full Frontal" host Samantha Bee was left out of a 2015 Vanity Fair spread that showcased TV's late-night hosts, she was so angry at the veritable sausage fest that she could feel her heartbeat in her ears.
This is just one of many anecdotes in Rolling Stone's new feature on the brilliant host who has taken late-night television by storm.
The feature profiles Bee's journey from rebellious Toronto schoolgirl to "Daily Show" badass correspondent to where she is now: arguably the ballsiest and most devastating host on late-night television. The fact that she's "female as f*ck" in a sea of dudes doesn't hurt, either.
"I remember being terrified," she told Rolling Stone's Alex Morris, of joining "The Daily Show" as a correspondent in 2003. "I had no idea what the job actually entailed, and no one really has time to baby-step you." But Bee ultimately settled into a role on the show that would prepare her for the gutsy work she does now on her own weekly series: traveling around the country to obscure locations to interview the likes of gas-industry experts, tobacco farmers, and criminologists (like the interview below, in which she discusses police shootings).
But another major benefit of being on "The Daily Show" was working with writer Jo Miller -- who is now the head writer for "Full Frontal." According to Bee, when Jon Stewart announced that he would be leaving "The Daily Show" in early 2015, "Jon loved Jo and believed in her for sure, but I don't know how imminently anyone was ready to offer her up her own show." But that's exactly what Bee did.
And when it came to hiring the rest of her writing team for "Full Frontal," she took the same approach. Bee said:
I have literally filled my office with people who have been underestimated their entire careers. To a person, we almost all fit into that category. It is so joyful to collect a group of people who nobody has ever thought could grasp the reins of something and fucking go for it.
According to Rolling Stone, she made the job application accessible to those who might not have had a background in TV writing, and used a "blind application process."
Hiring a team of writers that actually represents the country whose stories she's telling has -- take note, Hollywood -- delivered remarkable results. And so has having a platform to deliver her fierce monolgoues and biting interviews on subjects ranging from gun control to online harassment of women.
And as Rolling Stone reported, "While 'The Daily Show's' viewership has dwindled by close to 40 percent since [Trevor] Noah took over, 'Full Frontal' has 3.2 million viewers per episode."
And lucky for those millions of viewers, the show has been extended for another 26 episodes and will continue to deliver at least through 2017.
Bee has already taken on the NRA, the GOP, almost every single presidential candidate, countless state senators, as well as rape culture and misogyny as a whole. In an election year full of misogyny and general chaos, Bee's voice feels like the one we need to hear.
Head over to Rolling Stone to read the full profile.
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