Mary Beth Barone
American comedian and actress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Elizabeth Barone[1] (born May 28, 1991) is an American comedian and actress. As of 2025[update], she stars as Grace on Benito Skinner's Amazon Prime Video comedy series Overcompensating (2025–present), for which she also writes, and co-hosts the Dear Media podcast Ride (2023–present) with Skinner. The two also previously co-hosted the Spotify podcast Obsessed (2021–2023).
- Comedian
- actress
Mary Beth Barone | |
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| Born | May 28, 1991 Stamford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Education | Boston College (dropped out) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2015–present |
| Comedy career | |
| Medium |
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| Genres | |
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Barone began her comedy career in New York City in 2015 after working with the Upright Citizens Brigade. She became known for her live show Drag His Ass: A Fuckboy Treatment Program, which was created in 2019 and adapted into a Comedy Central web series in 2021.
Early life
Barone was born on May 28, 1991,[2][3] and raised in a Catholic family of Italian descent in Stamford, Connecticut, with five older siblings.[4][5][6] Her father, James E. Barone, Sr. (1945–2025),[1] worked as a surgeon and briefly performed as a stand-up comedian in New York City in the 1970s.[7] She attended Catholic school in Greenwich for 10 years and later graduated from Westhill High School in Stamford.[8][9] She was raised in a Republican household and identified as a Republican prior to attending college.[10][11] She began studying English at Boston College, but dropped out two years later and moved to Chinatown, Manhattan, at age 20, where she lived for several years.[12][13]
Career
While working at a start-up, Barone took two months of improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade before doing stand-up during an all-women open mic for the group in 2015, after which she decided to pursue comedy full-time.[14][7] A humorous "frequently asked questions" pamphlet she created to answer her family's anticipated questions about a date she was going on while on vacation in Florida went viral on Twitter in May 2019.[4] She met fellow comedian Benito Skinner in 2019 at a comedy show in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and began hosting a monthly comedy show with him that year.[15][16] Also in 2019, she performed a stand-up set for Comedy Central and started the Instagram account and Brooklyn–based live comedy show Drag His Ass: A Fuckboy Treatment Program.[17][18] In May 2021, Drag His Ass had been adapted into a Comedy Central web series.[19] During the COVID-19 pandemic, she started Coming Clean, a livestreamed comedy show on Instagram filmed from her bathtub.[20]
Barone and Skinner co-hosted the weekly Spotify podcast Obsessed, in which they discussed their pop culture "obsessions", from March 2021 to March 2023.[21] Also in March 2021, Barone performed for the first time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.[18][12] She and Skinner began co-hosting the weekly Dear Media podcast Ride in March 2023.[22] The Atlantic included it on their list of the best podcasts of 2023.[23] In March 2024, she released her self-produced stand-up special, Thought Provoking, on YouTube, and performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to promote it.[12] Barone started the social media video series Politics for Hot People, which focused on progressive politics, in February 2025.[24] During the 2025 New York City mayoral election, she endorsed Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani and interviewed him on Politics for Hot People.[10]
In 2025, Barone began starring in Skinner's Amazon Prime Video series Overcompensating, adapted from his live show of the same name,[25] as Grace, an uptight and popular college student at the fictional Yates University and the older sister of Benny, a closeted freshman at Yates played by Skinner.[9][26] She is also a writer for the series.[27] Henry Chandonnet of The Daily Beast called her a "series standout" and one of several "genuine breakouts" on the show, while Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times called her role "poignant" and "perhaps the show's most moving performance".[28][29] Barone co-starred on the music video for the song "Wild Guess" by Australian singer-songwriter Ruel, which premiered in October 2025.[30]
Barone's first hour-long comedy special Galaxy Brain premiered on July 28, 2026, on Netflix.[31] The special was taped on March 19, 2026, at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.[32] The Guardian's Owen Myers described the special as "55 minutes of whip-smart laughs that tackle all the no-nos of polite dinner party conversation".[33]
Personal life
Barone is bisexual.[8] By 2021, she was dating actor Edward Bluemel.[18] She announced a break up with actor Adam DiMarco during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers in July 2025.[34]
Comedic style
In 2018, Time Out New York described Barone's comedic style as "dark post-modernism".[35] Her comedy has been described as deadpan, observational, feminist, sex-positive, and focused on topics such as sex, bisexuality, religion, white privilege, the patriarchy, and "fuckboys".[13][36][20] Vulture described her as "the undisputed queen of hot girl comedy" in 2020.[18] She has listed Victoria Beckham, Lucille Ball, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and her father as influences on her comedy.[5]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Mary Beth's Sex Tape | Mary Beth | Short film; also writer and co-producer |
| 2022 | Supernigga | Jessica | Short film |
| 2023 | The Anne Frank Gift Shop | Madison | Short film |
| 2024 | The Disruptors | Mary Beth | |
| Sugar Baby | Marie | Also executive producer | |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | That Damn Michael Che | Party Planner #1 | Episode: "Black Mediocrity" |
| 2023 | Black Mirror | Lucy | Episode: "Joan Is Awful" |
| 2025 | Overcompensating | Grace | Main cast; also staff writer |
Music videos
| Year | Title | Artist(s) | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | "Wild Guess" | Ruel | Female lead; directed by Jackie! Zhou | [30] |