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Comedian John Crist Shares How Cancelation Set Him Free

Comedian John Crist Shares How Cancelation Set Him Free

By Movieguide® Contributor

After coming to fame through Christian-based comedy, John Crist’s life came crashing down after the sin of his private life was exposed. Four years later, he is thankful for the exposé and how it set him free to find healing and start living a healthier, Christ-filled life.

A pastor’s son, Crist grew up in the church. As he entered into comedy, he decided to commit to his faith and tell jokes about Christianity. As he rose to fame, Crist amassed an audience who appreciated his jokes just as much as they appreciated that he was a Christian. However, though he held a public faith, his private life was marred by sin.

“Every time I had a sold-out show or, you know, the line…[was] around the block…I could see all these people lined up to see me, and I was like, ‘I got to close these shades because it’s so uncomfortable for me for all these people [who] have driven hours…[but] if these people knew the truth about me, they would hate me,’” Crist told pastor Carey Nieuwhof.

“I didn’t really understand why people were coming to the shows totally, but it grew so much more and more shame and more and more shame and that led to more and more drinking and it led to more and more secrecy [and] hiding,” he continued.

In 2019, Crist’s double life became public when an outlet published a piece about his private life filled with drunkenness and women.

“If they hadn’t broken that story, I think I would have,” Crist wrote in his book. He had come to a point where he was so tired of his double life that he couldn’t keep up his “good boy” Christian image anymore; he needed an out.

“It was horrible because…I was under false agreement with those people that were coming into the shows at the churches,” Crist said. “It was a dishonest agreement…it [was] the hypocrisy, not so much the behavior.”

“All of my comedy videos were pointing out hypocrisy in a lot of ways,” he said in an apology video at the time. “… The biggest hypocrite in all of this was me that I was portraying a person on the Internet that I was not behaving like privately.”

He checked into rehab, and while he wasn’t addicted to traditional things like drugs or alcohol, he realized how addicted he was to attention.

This problem stemmed from being born into a family of six. Because his parents had so many kids to look after, Crist often felt overlooked and undervalued.

“[Now that] I’m an adult I can see it for what it is, but the message that you got that no one cares about you – other people are more important – that you’re overlooked and you’re excluded. I’ve carried that my whole life,” he said.

“So even before I was a comedian, I was doing it informally, kind of making jokes or trying to get attention [because], ‘Now they’ll see me,’” he continued.

“In that whole rehabilitation process, I found out there’s a God that loves you, and He cares about you, and He’s not mad at you,” he said, per CBN.

Now, nearly four years later, his motivation for his comedy comes from his desire to impact people for good.

“[I] don’t like what [I] see on the news and what [I] see in the culture and how, you know, how kids are behaving,” he said. “Everything [I] don’t like, I want to influence it… I’m coming at it in a way that kind of with humor to kind of bring exposure. To bring about change.”

He also uses his story to inspire others to bring their sin to light rather than continue to hide it.

Movieguide® previously reported on Crist:

Christian comedian John Crist recently shared his experience with the church and comedy following his sexual misconduct scandal. 

“I think the local Church is, in a lot of ways in this country, our only hope. If the local Church could do what it was intended to do, I think it could solve the majority of the problems we’re looking at in this country and around the world,” Crist told The Christian Post.

CBN added that “Crist was virtually shut out from church” after sexual misconduct allegations were brought against him. 

As Movieguide® reported, after the scandal, Crist wanted to leave comedy and “commit suicide” while in rehab for four months. 

However, during that time, “I found out there’s a God that loves you, and He cares about you, and He’s not mad at you,” he shared.


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