Comedian Julia Scotti appeared on season 11 of NBC’s America’s Got Talent in 2016. At the time, she was 63 years old, not a typical contestant.
She told jokes about being “fat, old, single and broke,” including a bit about how if she was on the Titanic she’d be expected to give up her seat to a pretty younger woman to which she would respond “F**k that! You’re going to have to learn to live with disappointment…At least for another few minutes.”
She took the judges and audience by surprise.
Concluding her set, Scotti received a standing ovation from the crowd and Howie Mandel, one of the four judges. Mandel asked why she had waited so long to start comedy, and she paused.
Scotti recalls, “I said ‘I’m never going to get this opportunity again and I could help a lot of people.’ So I took a big deep breath and just blurted it out.”
In front of 13 million viewers, Scotti came out publicly as transgender, explaining that for the first 28 years of her life she was known as “Rick Scotti.” The crowd roared in support. Scotti received praise from all four judges and continued on the show, eventually becoming a quarter-finalist.
A New Jersey native, Scotti visited MCCC on Thursday, February 13 for an event hosted by the Rainbow Alliance and the Student Government Association. Students gathered in SC104 across from the cafeteria to hear her words of advice.
Leonard Winogora, the Mercer On-Site Coordinator for William Paterson University and club advisor for Rainbow Alliance, said they invited her to provide motivation because she was someone who would “bring a perspective about trans people.”
He continues, “We’ve had forums on this, but never had, actually, a speaker who really could talk about the issue, what it was like, and at the same time be a comedian.”
Scotti started comedy when she was 28 years old, when she was still Rick Scotti, and stuck with it for more than a decade before stepping back from the microphone to begin another chapter in her life.
She decided to return to college to become a schoolteacher and begin her transition from male to female.
During that time, she came out to her 9 year old son and 12 year old daughter. Scotti got divorced and had to fight for rights to share custody of her children, which the court eventually granted.
Scotti says, “I didn’t see them for 14 years. I missed my daughter’s graduation. I missed my son’s little league games. I missed it all.”
She continues, “But my truth was that I was who I am. What kind of a parent would I have been if I lived a lie?”
Scotti has since reunited with both of her children.
Attendees were moved by her story, but Scotti continued making them laugh and smile with her light-hearted and positive spirit.
First-year Cyber Security major Aniela Krzeminska who attended the event said, “I took away how important it is to be authentic in the face of adversity even when you’re facing, you know, a world that might reject you. It’s so important to be who you are.”
After Scotti finished her question and answer session, students and faculty stuck around to take pictures with her and thanked her for her advice.
Scotti says, “If I die now, I wanna die on stage. That’s how I wanna go. You know? That’s how much I love what I do. And I love what I do because what I do now is true to me.”
Scotti will be featured in an upcoming Showtime feature called “More Funny Women of a Certain Age” on March 14 at 10:00 p.m.
