Preacher Lawson’s Divine Revelations

The self-proclaimed “clean comedian” talks about prioritizing authenticity over all.

by Ben Boddez

Published on February 17, 2025

He’s told the story in his most recent special – when comedian Preacher Lawson was only a couple weeks old, some family friends of his mother’s asserted that he was going to grow up to deliver impassioned sermons, giving him his namesake. While they weren’t exactly right, they were certainly on the right track. Like a preacher, Lawson is known for captivating crowds with his boundless energy on stage, but he sees the connection between the two careers a little differently.

“Whether it’s good or bad, you’re on stage sending a message,” he says. “You’re responsible for your words and your actions on stage and off stage, but I didn’t realize that until later on.”

At this comment, Lawson laughs while thinking about his days on America’s Got Talent, where he first attracted attention in 2017 at age 25. Lawson made it all the way to the finals, only to lose to a 12-year-old ventriloquist – something he often satirizes in his work – and left enough of an impression to return for all-star seasons in 2019 and 2024. On the show, Lawson once told an anecdote about running into two women, humorously exaggerating their accents before casually adding the obvious: “She’s Black, by the way,” or “She’s white, by the way.”

“I was thinking, ‘Okay, I’m making fun of both races, it’s funny,’” he says. “I didn’t realize what I was doing until after shows, I would have these six, seven-year-old little white boys come up to me…” Here, Lawson does an accent even more exaggerated than the one he did on the show, clicking his tongue and adding wild hand gestures. “I’m like, first off, where did that come from? You added some stuff! They don’t know, they’re just repeating what I said, but I didn’t realize how much I don’t like them doing that – what if they did that in front of a Black woman?”

Of course, what Lawson is able to present in a full stand-up show is a lot different than a three-minute set performed on national television. Nearing a decade since his debut on AGT and preparing to tour his third special, Lawson feels like he’s honed his craft quite a bit since those early days. That doesn’t mean he’s changed a lot as a person – instead, he’s just zeroed in on authenticity, forgoing gimmicks to make his on-stage persona a closer match for his naturally funny self.

“People tell me, ‘Don’t say you hate your first special,’ but honestly, I do!” he says. “This one doesn’t feel like I’m trying to impress anybody. It doesn’t feel like I’m necessarily trying to be funny, it just feels like I’m being funny; I’m being myself. I watch some of my clips back and I’m like ‘Why am I yelling?’ I’m so performative, so in your face. A lot of people do that – they’re trying to go viral. They just want to make it as a comedian.”

Lawson has often been classified as a “clean comedian,” a label that he does identify with despite the fact that he’ll tell you that he’s currently “the dirtiest I’ve ever been in my life – but comparatively to most, I’m clean.” It’s just another effort to mirror his real-life persona. Lawson says that he thinks most people dislike clean comedians, because they perceive a sense of inauthenticity – but truthfully, Lawson only started cursing for the first time in his thirties.

He currently looks up to Nate Bargatze for being able to play arenas despite having the “clean” label attached to him – “He’s like the clean version of Louis CK – as far as his mannerisms,” he says. “He just talks. He figured out the style of how to talk and be funny with minimal effort.”

Minimal effort is far from how you would describe one of Lawson’s shows. Instead of shock value, most of Lawson’s laughs come from his overtly physical persona – you can often find him punctuating his jokes by running wildly around the stage, morphing into characters with different physicalities and acting things out. Lawson lists many of the names you’d expect when it comes to inspirations – Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Jim Carrey – but what inspired him to pursue it as a career will always be the material of a more niche act by the name of Arnez J.

“I first saw him when I was 12 or something, but he was the most physical comedian that I’d ever seen. He was so energetic, and I was like ‘I’m energetic like that.’ So that was my whole thing when I started stand-up, but I was like, ‘Well, let me not overdo it,’ and I just came into myself,” he says. “You get more into comedy, and you notice things like Katt Williams or Martin Lawrence, all their punch lines are act outs. Anytime they have a closing to the bit, the funniest part is them doing an act out.”

Lawson’s own act-outs often require enough energy that you have to think about his work-out routine, something that he showcases often on his social media accounts. A proud vegan and martial artist, Lawson says that there’s a lot more of a fitness component than people realize to being a great comedian – he mentions a time he gave up on working out in 2021, and felt like he couldn’t keep up with his physical bits and rigorous travel schedule. “I like feeling better, and I like compliments,” he laughs.

He tells a story about a time he felt inspired – but not too inspired – by the work ethic of Kevin Hart, something Lawson credits for the star’s ascent to the top of the comedy mountain. As Lawson was performing as part of the New Faces showcase at Just for Laughs Montreal in 2017, Hart walked into the late-night afterparty Lawson was attending.

“He did a midnight show, so he didn’t get off stage until like 1:30. I go to this after party, I’m just chilling like a loser in the corner, and I see all these different comedians, and everyone’s spread out. Kevin Hart comes to the party, and of course, everybody just happened to go where Kevin Hart was,” he says. “I left at 3 o’clock. He was still there. I woke up, looked at his story, 7 a.m., he’s on the elliptical like ‘Gotta get that work in!’ I don’t want to work that hard. That’s insane. This dude, he wants to be a billionaire. I don’t want to be a billionaire, that sounds like a billion problems.”

For Lawson, being able to hold his own with some of the big names on the Just For Laughs Vancouver bill, his next Canadian stop, is more than enough proof that his hard work is paying off. Really, the first place that he got his work ethic is from his mom. Growing up with financial hardships – Lawson was homeless for a period of time – Lawson’s mom did everything she could to give him opportunities, even loudly and publicly encouraging him to get up on stage for the first time after nerves took over at his first real gig.

“She really made me delusional to the point where I think I could do anything I want, which is crazy,” he says. “She bled her craziness on me. The way you just watch my mom work – she has four kids, she would go to school and be working. If you didn’t have any kids, and you were just working and going to school, that would be insane. I just really took that work ethic.”

Known as one of the nicest guys on the comedy circuit, often hanging out with the crowd and taking requests after his set finishes, what you see is truly what you get with Preacher Lawson. And simply in talking to him for fifteen minutes, what you see is quite obviously someone with a natural gift for cracking people up making the most of it.