Bobby thinks Americans faked the moon landing

Katherine Ryan has revealed that her husband Bobby Koostra is a conspiracy theorist who thinks the Americans faked the moon landings.

Speaking on the Dish podcast, the comedian says he’s a ‘hillbilly’ from her hometown of  Sarnia, Ontario, who ‘calls loo roll "shit tickets"’

‘And he doesn't believe in the moon landing,’ she adds. ‘He thinks that the government in America were really committed to showing themselves up against the Russians.

‘They'd spent too much money on the Vietnam War so they just went underwater and filmed a fake moon landing. He's a great, he's a great guy. And that's what guys are like from my hometown. And, I don't blame him in not trusting the government.’

Talking to hosts Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, Ryan also discusses how she got into comedy, saying she was ‘definitely a show-off’ growing up. 

When she was 18 she moved to Toronto for university and ‘right away I worked in TV. I did podium dancing for this TV show’, she said.

'Then I got a job at Hooters and I met so many like-minded women there, all like me, women from small towns who had moved to the big city with these dreams… and a lot of us were fun and funny, and we'd go out in these big groups, and they'd be so powerful.

‘In my hometown people thought I was weird, but these girls were like, "You are very funny,".’

She did her first stand-up gig in her Hooters uniform, but admits it took her a while to find her voice. 

‘I did like a character and it was really offensive, like way more offensive than I am now,’ she revealed. ‘I liked Sarah Silverman and was attracted to shock comedy, but I didn't really get the nuance of what made it funny, so I was just like really offensive. I was always a bit of a paradox.’

She also joked that she and Grimshaw could set up a male version of Hooters, called Cocks:

Ryan, 41, is currently on tour with her new stand-up show, Battleaxe, explaining the title ‘is a negative word to describe women historically who were like disruptive, or outspoken, or masculine, or difficult. And I just like repurposing those words to be a good thing.’

She added: ’I'm looking forward to my over-40s era, and I love belligerent older women, I really love them. I think it’s aspirational to me, being a battleaxe.’

The comedian also explained how she always tried to get back home after each gig to see her two youngest children, aged three and 30 months, because: ‘I tour like a mom, I don't tour like a dad’.

She explained: ‘The boys in my industry, they just disappear for like ten months, and I have to go back and forth and zigzag. I still sleep with the children because they wake up in the night and I don't feel like an infant should be unattended ever. 

‘North of Leeds, I'll sleep over but anything like within three hours, if I can get home, I get home.

‘I've got so many kids now, that they basically form their own society, and I think they'll be fine without me. As long as I'm there for the 5am wake up, and I'm willing to play all day and do it again, they don't notice really, they forget. 

‘Then Violet is 15 and she's been through it all. Having a teenager is like giving birth to your high school bully. She’s really beautiful and intimidating and she's British and she has rich parents.She’s like all the girls who were mean to me all my life.

‘She has a 45-step skincare routine.  I think  it's sweet now, that Britney Spears, "not a girl, not yet a woman’ point in life, because we'll let her have a glass of wine now and then with dinner, especially if we're on holiday, but she'll still order dino nuggets off the kid's menu.’

• Dish from Waitrose has just returned for a sixth series, with Ryan the first guest. It is available on all podcast providers.

Published: 18 Sep 2024