Michelle Wolf: Who is the comedian who skewered Sarah Sanders at the White House Correspondents' Dinner?

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Michelle Wolf didn't need Donald Trump's presence to cause a major stir at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

The comedian's unfiltered, brutal routine ripped straight into the camp of senior White House staff Trump had sent in his stead - including a visibly uncomfortable Sarah Huckabee Sanders - drawing audible gasps and seeing several conservative members storm out of the room. Former press secretary Sean Spicer then took to Twitter to call the performance a "disgrace".

“She burns facts,” Wolf said of Sanders, “and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye – like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”

She also confronted many of Trump's most controversial policies, saying of his plan to arm teachers: "He wants to give teachers guns, and I support that because then they can sell them for things they need like supplies.”

Wolf initially worked in investment banking for almost four years before breaking into the comedy scene, bagging her first late-night television appearance in 2014, when she appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Wolf made several appearances on the show, most notably as the character "Grown-Up Annie", referencing the character from the classic musical.
She also worked as writing supervisor on the show, before joining The Daily Show with Trevor Noah as a contributor in April 2016.

The same year, she performed her stand-up show So Brave at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, marking the first time she performed outside of North America. The Guardian named her as a "supremely confident new voice" and listed the show as one of their recommendations for the year.

She also appeared on Live At The Apollo and as a panelist on 8 Out of 10 Cats, while reflecting on the result of the 2016 US Presidential Election for Frankie Boyle's American Autopsy on BBC 2. HBO aired her debut stand-up special Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady in 2017, receiving rave reviews.

"Wolf has a friendly, peppy demeanor but delivers her punch lines like shanks to the gut," Vinson Cunningham of the New Yorker wrote of her work.

Next up, Wolf will host her own half-hour talk show on Netflix titled The Break with Michelle Wolf, which premieres 27 May. Netflix stated, via Deadline, that the show won't have a political slant, but will "make fun of everything and everyone else."

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