Jena Friedman


Jena Friedman is an American stand up comedian, writer, and filmmaker. She has been a field producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has written for Late Show with David Letterman. She developed the television project Soft Focus with Jena Friedman for Adult Swim, the first installment of which premiered in February 2018.

Early life

Friedman was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey and was raised in a Conservative Jewish household. She studied anthropology at Northwestern University. After graduation, she worked as a healthcare consultant for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

Career

She has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, National Geographic Explorer, MSNBC, and BBC Two. She has also been a contributing writer to The New Yorker.
In 2010, she received a cease and desist letter from The New York Times for parodying their wedding videos. The parody, titled Ted and Gracie, has since become a popular web series. In 2007, she wrote The Refugee Girls Revue, a satire inspired by American Girl dolls. The play earned critical acclaim in the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival and had a successful run Off-Broadway.
In 2015, Friedman's solo show American Cunt, premiered in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to critical acclaim. The magazine Paste named American Cunt one of the 10 Best Stand Up Comedy Specials of 2016. She created Soft Focus with Jena Friedman, a series of Adult Swim specials that she also co-executive produces, directs, and hosts. The specials include interviews with John McAfee, the American software entrepreneur and Presidential hopeful, as well as Gilberto Valle, New York City police officer who was convicted of a conspiracy to kidnap, cook, and eat women, better known as the “Cannibal Cop.” The second installment premiered in January 2019.