WHEN KEVIN HART tells you to “stop being a bitch,” you listen. “He was like, ‘Put the grind in. Put the hustle in,’” says Druski, a viral comedian known for racking up millions of views on his made-for-social sketches. “‘Do the hard work, do the stand-up.’” But even though this legend of the craft was telling him how to advance his career, it wasn’t for him.
“I didn’t have a love for it,” the comedian, 29, says from the Los Angeles rental where he’d spent the past six months, as he packs up to head home to Atlanta. Druski got his start making off-the-cuff skits, acting out familiar characters — from a frat star to a country bumpkin — and had taken off with his series as the audacious CEO of fictional Coulda Been Records. With Hart’s counsel, he set out on a 30-plus-stop tour blending his comedic acting with a bit of stand-up. He performed for friends and popped into several open mics along the way to workshop his material for the road — but it still wasn’t clicking. “You try to make others happy, but you soon learn that it’s not really about forcing what the ancestors of comedy believe is right.”
That intuition for what his fans want from him has allowed Druski — born Drew Desbordes — to blaze a path to superstardom. He’s held down opening slots for Lil Baby and J. Cole, landed roles in streaming movies, and appeared in commercials for brands like Google, Bud Light, and Nike — C.J. Stroud of the Houston Texans even quoted him in a postgame presser — all while brushing aside the traditional gatekeepers. “We don’t need anybody to tell us we can be on that TV show, or to kiss up to somebody to try to get in that door,” he says. “I think it’s just amazing that I can create my fan base.”
The dinner table was Druski’s first stage. His mom, Cheryl Desbordes, helped him cultivate his comedic chops at a young age, plopping him down in front of the family video camera to hone his imitations. “It was just a lot of opportunities for Drew to learn,” says Desbordes. “All that time and emotional energy. I can see it in how he does his comedy.”
Desbordes was also the one to spark Druski into taking his comedy seriously. Living at home in his early twenties, Druski rearranged the family room to create an interrogation scene for a sketch. “I remember my mom came home in the middle of that skit, and she just started screaming, ‘What are you doing? You need to get a job, you are too old,’” he remembers. “I cried a little bit after seeing her cry. I was embarrassed.”
With that moment as fuel, Druski dialed in. He grew his social media following from 4,000 to millions, creating characters like a rabid Alabama football fan, a TSA agent too hype off a power trip, and a guy who somehow always just got out of prison. In 2019, he struck up a lovable bromance with then-budding rapper Jack Harlow; Druski would join Harlow on tour, providing him more opportunities to find new inspirations for characters. Drake was paying attention and cast Druski in his “Laugh Now, Cry Later” music video. A year later, Drake and Druski would reunite on Instagram Live for more than 200,000 fans, causing the app to malfunction. “It just started to glitch, and I was like, ‘I have to expand this,’” Druski says.
These days, all of his work falls under his production company, 4Lifers Entertainment, which consists of friends from his hometown and a collection of creatives he has picked up along the way. Druski looks up to Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison Productions — collaborative juggernaut that continues to spur dozens of movies with friends in front of the camera and countless others behind it. “We make sure when we sign these deals with any of these big companies that my team is involved in the creative side,” says Druski. “I have a team full of young Black writers that I grew up with, and they help me be the best me.”
His rise hasn’t been without controversy. In 2022, he posted a skit — called “That Friend that tries to make the girls OVERLY drink” — where he played a man who encourages women to excessively imbibe so he can sexually assault them. Audiences were split. Some commended Druski for calling out this behavior, while others felt that joking about rape was insensitive. “I think I just played the character too well,” he says, discussing the subject for the first time.
After the controversy bubbled up, he took the clip down. “I didn’t want to continue to trigger people,” he says. “It’s always coming from a good place.” But Druski isn’t done exposing this kind of behavior. His characters often touch on misogynistic standards and the early signs of emotional toxicity in relationships. “I was like, ‘Yo, you have to remember this is the same stuff that I’ve been doing. This is my comedic voice.’”
As for what’s next, his plans are to continue mastering that chameleonic gift. And he wants to get back out on the road for another comedy tour — this time with less pressure to follow a past mold and more fire to create his own. “The new grind is how to create your own fan base and how to entertain the world in different ways,” he says. “Same thing, different hustle.”
Hoyt Richards as a young man.
