-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-nominated performer
and best-selling author you know from her shows
like "Strangers with Candy" and "At Home with Amy Sedaris."
You can see her in the second season of "Girls5eva,"
which is streaming now on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-Your father and I walked the devil's path,
and it was a dark one.
-We had no moral compass, no regard for tomorrow.
Just dopamine, thrills!
-Waking up in a truck bed beside a civic center,
kind of all wet with, like, coins all stuck to me.
-[ Laughter ] -Please welcome back to the show
our dear friend Amy Sedaris!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hi! How are you?
-I'm good. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
-It's so great to see you again. -It's really good to see you.
And no jacket. I like this. -I know!
I got a little more casual over a pandemic.
Yeah. Yeah, I was like, "Nothing matters." Yeah.
It's really nice to have you back.
-Thank you. -One of the things we --
Why did you bring out a mug, by the way?
-I'm gonna get you to sign it later
for an auction I'm doing, which I'll get to.
-Okay, great. You can feel free to set it down.
-Okay, okay. -Okay, great.
-Oh, yeah, you don't give water here.
Do you have water? -Yeah, we have water here.
-Oh, look at that jug. Oh, I see.
Well, you don't want to fill it up too much,
'cause you're gonna have to sign it.
-Okay, yeah. That's a good point.
But, you know, we've always talked about
how your home is full of wonderful objects.
-Oh, have we talked about that? -We have.
-I have been decluttering like crazy.
-Okay. -It's been very stressful.
I don't know. Having to say goodbye to things.
Things I never thought I'd get rid of, I'm getting rid of.
-Okay. -Yeah, a lot of anxiety.
I lost 6 pounds doing it.
You know, and I had some friends helping me, and they were like,
"You know, you have to make a quick decision.
Are you gonna keep it, are you gonna get rid of it?"
It's hard. -And you have some photos
of some of the things. Now, I think after you gave that setup,
people might be surprised by some of these items,
because I think no one here would keep this.
-Really?! What?!
-Well, let's start with some of your books.
This is a book called "Asthma and Eczema."
-Yeah, I don't have --
That's a page-turner. It's really good.
It's a little dry.
Yeah, I'm giving it away.
-You gave it away? -I'm gonna give it away.
-You're going to give it away.
-The auction is gonna be -- You know Cure Thrift Store?
It's kind of in our neighborhood, 3rd and 13th.
And we're gonna do an online auction.
-Oh, great.
-And all the money goes to diabetes research.
Plus, I'll probably throw in some rabbit,
you know, places in there. -Gotcha.
-And then my brother is doing a --
He has a new book coming out,
and June 2nd, he's doing an event in Brooklyn.
And I can give away --
I can just give away stuff on a display table.
So I have three bins of, like, palm stuff.
Like, a wooden mushroom. You know, things like that.
-This is another book that I can imagine.
This one's harder to part with, because this seems so useful.
-Oh, yeah. -"Microwave for One."
-Well, I don't have a microwave. -Well, there you go.
-So that's why I'm giving that away.
-So it seems like of all your books,
you got rid of the ones
where you don't have a microwave, asthma, or eczema.
-You never know, when guests come over.
-What is this? Are you getting rid of this?
-Okay, that is a rusty-nail wind chime
that Todd Ola made for me. [ LIGHT LAUGHTER ]
And it was for people with bipolar.
You know, that way, when you're in the upswing, downswing.
It's about crafts for people with that disability.
So maybe when you're depressed, you take a handful of nails
and you throw them in your backyard.
-Okay. -And then, when spring comes,
you go get those nails, and they'll have rust on them.
-Okay. -Which is pretty.
And then you hang them up.
But the problem is now, with nails, is it galvanized?
Is that how you say it? They don't rust.
So I had to go on eBay and get these rusty nails.
-Sorry. So you went on eBay
and you got pre-rusted nails? -Yes.
There's a lot of guys selling rusty nails on eBay.
And I paid $7, and he sent me a lot.
-Okay, what kind of guy --
When you picture a guy selling rusty nails, what do you think?
-Ooh. [ Laughs ]
Yeah. You know.
-This is a -- Is this a clipboard?
-Yes! -Okay.
-The problem with that clipboard is that it's too long.
You know what I mean? It's too long for my body.
You know, hold it up, and it just comes -- You know.
-So the problem is not that it has a human intestine drawing?
-No. -Okay.
-I'm gonna get big bucks for that. Yeah.
-What are these? -Children's crutches!
Because I have them because --
When people come to my house and they have kids,
I'm like, "Do you want to play with the crutches?"
And let me tell you --
Nobody wants to see their kids playing with crutches.
-Uh-huh.
So, you have these just for -- not for kids who are injured.
You have these for healthy kids. -To play in.
Yeah, they're playing with crutches.
-They look like they're from a bygone era, as well.
-Yeah, they're pretty bad.
-Those are like "Little Women" crutches.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ] It's so true. -And now, this is interesting.
Do you think this will move?
-Oh, it says "JEW." It's the initials of somebody.
Julie Ellen Worden. -Okay.
-But it says "JEW," so, hopefully a Jewish person.
-Yeah. Either someone with those initials or, more likely,
a Jewish person would be drawn to it.
I also want to ask about Tina real quick.
-Oh, yes.
-We've talked about your rabbit, Tina, over the years.
It should be noted, one of the first times you were on,
you took Tina to the vet, and Tina was a boy.
-Yes, after four years. -Okay, so, there's Tina.
-Look at Tina the other day. Look at that leg.
Yeah. No, Tina, you know, when I got her, the first --
I did your show, and I had just gotten Tina.
What is it, 9 years ago or 10 years ago?
My problem is that people that watch Tina for me
when I go away on big jobs, they're moving.
-Oh, no! -So now I'm really --
I go to bed like this because I'm worried
I have to find somebody who can watch Tina for me.
-Is it a lot of work to rabbit-sit Tina?
-Well, no, most rabbits --
I mean, just in case, you know, rabbits can get sick like that
because they don't speak like most animals.
They try to communicate through their actions.
So I really want someone who knows about rabbits.
-'Cause your current babysitter's like, "No."
-Yeah, I met them at a rabbit conference. Yeah.
-Okay, that's great.
-Which they don't do anymore in New Rochelle.
-They canceled the -- -Yes!
-You met them at a real rabbit conference?
-Yes. -Oh, my God.
-But now I speak to them on "Thump" magazine,
which is another -- Yes.
-You subscribe to "Thump"? -Yes.
-And people do look like their --
At rabbit conferences, when people say,
"Oh, people look like their animals,"
it's, like, everybody's got like...
buck teeth.
-There's a carrot bar?
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, that's fun, yeah.
Well, I used to sell stuff, but they don't buy things.
Rabbit owners don't.
-They don't buy things? -They're pretty cheap.
-Did you find anything while you were decluttering
that was too dear to get rid of?
-Lots of stuff, which -- I brought this mug out
'cause you gotta sign this 'cause I can put this in a --
[ Laughter ]
See, I told you!
[ Laughter ]
I'm sorry. Oops!
-Are you sor-- How can you be sorry?
That was the greatest payoff.
I feel like I was just in a Hitchcock movie.
[ Laughter ]
-Because I have Letterman's -- I complimented Letterman once.
He had tassels on his loafers.
He ripped them off and he gave them to me.
-Really?! -But I'm gonna keep those.
-Oh, you're gonna keep the tassels, but --
-[ Laughs ]
[ Laughter ]
And Martha Stewart is having a tag sale, also.
-Really? -Same time I am.
Yeah, competition's on.
-Hold on. I'm gonna sign that for you.
-And when I did "Conan O'Brien" once, I had,
like, a wood carved squirrel, and I turned it into, you know,
to smoke pot out of, like a bong.
And I brought it on "Conan," and I handed it to Martha,
and it still had pot in the chamber.
I'm auctioning that off. -Really?
-Yeah. -But she didn't ever smoke it?
You just gave it to her. -I don't know.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah.
-You -- We were talking about rabbit-sitting,
and I do want to ask. -Okay.
-Were you -- As a younger person, did you ever babysit?
-I was a horrible babysitter. -Why were you horrible?
I'm surprised. -I was real --
A minute the parents left, I was like, "You go to bed now.
I don't care what -- You go now, right now."
And then I'd make them go to bed.
Of course, I'd eat everything, ransack the place.
And then I was addicted to Barbra Streisand,
and that's back in Rona Barrett.
You know, they had those magazines.
I would, you know, cut up pictures of Barbra Streisand
that were in the gossip magazines.
-So you would go through their home --
-Ransack it. -And you would cut out --
I mean, I would say, there might be nothing more
haunting than dropping off the babysitter,
coming back home, flipping through your magazines,
and just, like, all the Barbra Streisands are gone.
-I know. It's terrible. -Yeah, well --
-Or I'd double-book. I'd say yes to a lot of people
because I didn't want to turn people down.
-That's good. People do like to find out
at the last minute the babysitter is not coming.
-"Yes. Sorry.
But I'm sending someone named Rikki over."
And that never worked out.
But I wanted to talk about this dress.
When I go shopping with David -- -Yes, that's your brother.
-My brother David.
He talked me into getting this dress because it's unflattering.
-Okay. -And the tulle is up here.
And one time, I talked Dave into buying a pair
of women's slacks at Agnes B, where it zipped up the back.
And he was at a urinal.
[ Laughter ]
I didn't want to -- So I might auction this dress off.
-It's beautiful. I like that dress.
I don't think it's unflattering. -I feel like I'm pregnant.
That's what it feels like. -I guess it doesn't look --
I see that there's some flaws, yeah.
-Yeah, he goes, "Oh..." -But when you walked out,
oh, my goodness. Yeah.
It was, like, up here, and as you sat, it was like...
-I'm gonna auction it off. Byoo-oop! Yeah. Whatever.
-I think it looks very beautiful,
and I'm very happy to be a part of this auction.
I'm gonna try to get you some more stuff, as well.
-Really? -Yeah.
-Okay. I have, like, a U-Haul. I have a lot.
You know in "Silence of the Lambs"
when they go into that storage unit?
-Yeah.
-That's what my house was starting to look like.
-Right, right. -Clutter on clutter.
Terrible. But, yeah, it was really hard.
-Alright, well, this good. And I'm glad that everybody --
that both diabetics and rabbit owners
will benefit from this. Two communities who deserve it.
Thank you for being here. It's always such a delight.
-Oh, it went by so fast. -It does go by so fast.
-I'm so sorry. -It's really funny.
You knew what you were doing. Amy Sedaris, every--
-I didn't! -You knew!
"Girls5eva," streaming now on Peacock.