THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 52 AUGUST 21, 2019

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Singh, dressed in a knee-length

white vest and matching saddle

shoes, her long raven hair dan-

gling in a ponytail, is something

of a unicorn herself. Not only

is she one of the few females to

brave broadcast TV’s late night

airwaves since Joan Rivers

famously flamed out on Fox more

than 30 years ago, she’s also the

first openly bisexual woman

of color to sit in a host’s chair.

Perhaps as significantly, she’s the

first internet-bred star in broad-

cast late night, too.

While her name and face might

not be familiar to the tradition-

ally older demographic that

tunes in to late night, Singh,

30, is hardly new to the post-

broadcast generation of viewers

who wouldn’t know a Jimmy from

a Seth or a Stephen, let alone a

Carson (of Last Call With Carson

Daly, whose NBC time slot she’s

taking over). For the past nine

years, she’s been building her

own uniquely personal, extraor-

dinarily successful brand on

YouTube, where nearly 15 million

fans know her as Superwoman

(the name of her channel) and

consider her something between

a star and a best friend. Her

2013 post in which she poked

fun at women’s getting-ready

rituals has been viewed nearly

29 million times. Another, the

music video Voi ces in 2016, has

grabbed 9.5 million. And an

interview with Michelle Obama

has 2.3 million. Even Singh’s

more mundane life updates

attract huge numbers, like the

2018 Instagram post in which she

introduced the world to her new

puppy. It drew more than 700,000

likes (or roughly the same num-

ber of people who tuned in to

Daly’s Last Call before he called it

quits, after 17 years, in May).

Internet stars have (sort of)

crossed over before. YouTube

comic Miranda Sings landed

a Netflix series. Grace Helbig

parlayed her awkward humor into

a talk show on E! (after Chelsea

Handler bolted for Netflix). But

none has ventured this deeply

into the white-hot (emphasis

on white) center of mainstream

entertainment. And late night

TV — even at the ungodly start-

ing time of 1:35 a.m. — is an

altogether different league with

an altogether different audi-

ence and different demands. So,

naturally, Superwoman is feeling

the pressure these days. “There’s

a small part of me that’s like, ‘Is

everyone going to like this?’ ” she

acknowledges after she’s done

throwing footwear at the writers

(some of them later even put on

the slippers). “That’s obviously a

fear. But I’m going to do what I’ve

always done, which is make some-

thing that I think is good, that is

authentic to me. That’s what has

gotten me my success thus far.”

SINGH INHERITED HER HUSTLE FROM

her father, who after leaving

India’s Punjab for Canada with

her mother in the 1970s tried

out furniture sales and working

security before he opened a slew

of gas stations when she was at

university. “I’ve imitated him

quite a bit,” she acknowledges,

rattling off all the jobs she has

held down — collection agent,

drive-thru cashier at Canadian

fast food chain Harvey’s, camera

saleswoman, dance instructor.

Her adolescent years in the

Toronto suburbs were a picture of

Singh’s YouTube

videos, which

for many years

she shot in her

parents’ home

in Canada, have

pulled 3.1 billion

lifetime views.

Jimmy Fallon (left) and Seth Meyers welcomed Singh to the NBC family March 14

with champagne and an invitation to sit behind the Tonight Show desk.

hen Lilly Singh runs a pitch meeting, she comes bearing

gifts. “Live your best life in the office — you don’t have

to wear shoes!” she announces to the writers she’s

assembled on this scorching August afternoon in a drab

conference room off Melrose Avenue in Hollywood,

where they’ ll be discussing ideas for her new NBC late

night show, A Little Late, which premieres Sept. 16. She

proceeds to toss out pairs of fluffy white unicorn slippers.

normalcy: While her parents were

hard at work creating opportuni-

ties for Singh and her older sister,

Tina, she was listening to rap

music in her bedroom, idolizing

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and

dreaming of a career in entertain-

ment. By 2010, she was a senior at

York University still living with

her parents and wondering what

she’d do with a degree in psy-

chology, and she was struggling

with depression.

That’s when Singh discovered

YouTube. There was AKTV, a

brown kid from Canada just like

her, talking about Indian stereo-

types and freestyle rapping from

his bedroom, and Helbig, upload-

ing daily dispatches about life as

a post-grad. For a girl with big

dreams who was feeling utterly

alone, those videos became a

lifeline. Soon she worked up the

courage to create a channel — the

name Superwoman came from

her first MSN Messenger screen

name, cribbed from the early

2000s rap song by Missy Elliott

protege Lil’ Mo — and posted

a video of her own, a spoken-

word poem that she later took

down because it was “so crazy.”

Amazingly, it got 70 views. “I was

like, ‘Whoa, I am famous,’ ” says

Singh. “It boggled my mind. How

did these people find this video?

Who were they and why were

they watching?”

It was enough positive rein-

forcement that Singh kept going,

immediately throwing herself

into multiple posts a week despite

W