“It’s the Summer of Labubu”: An 11-Minute Cig With Comedian Liza Treyger

THURSDAY 6:43 PM JULY 10, 2025 PARK SLOPE

Last Thursday evening at The Bell House in Park Slope, comedians Liza Treyger and Drew Anderson joined forces with THNK1994 to entertain a crowd of nostalgic millennials with ancient scripture: a dramatic reading of the canonical Bravo series Gallery Girls, which lasted for all of eight episodes back in 2012. What, Anderson wondered, was Treyger up to when the show first aired? “I was probably drunk, wearing uggs, causing chaos in Chicago, and dreaming of my New York life,” confessed Treyger over a cigarette outside the venue. In the decade-plus since, though, things have been trending up, and earlier this year Treyger released her very own Netflix special, Night Owl, in which she muses on the Real Housewives, phone addiction, and sporadic substance abuse. Below, Treyger and Anderson talk gossip, gallery life, drunken art purchases, and the Labubu fad. “It’s embarrassing to be that trendy and obvious,” Treyger says, “but I got it as a gift and they’re cute.”—KATHERINE SIMON

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DREW ANDERSON: I’m here with Liza Treyger. How are you?

LIZA TREYGER: I’m thrilled.

ANDERSON: You’re thrilled?

TREYGER: I can’t believe this is happening. It feels very Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan. Our friend [Mary-Beth Barone]  couldn’t make the show, but I was going to come watch anyway.

ANDERSON: You’re a fill-in tonight, for those who don’t know.

TREYGER: I’m a fill-in. Thank God I’ve watched Gallery Girls four times through.

ANDERSON: What’s your relationship to the show?

TREYGER: I watched it as it came out. I loved it.

ANDERSON: What was Liza like in 2012?

TREYGER: I was doing stand-up comedy. I was probably drunk, wearing uggs, causing chaos in Chicago, and dreaming of my New York life. But I knew these girls and the art gallery world. One of my best friends is in the art world and has worked her way through all the galleries, so I also felt extra connected.

ANDERSON: Were you giving her advice based on watching the show at all?

TREYGER: No, these people are a humiliation compared to her. She truly is a visionary in that world. She wouldn’t even be caught dead in an event with any of these women.

ANDERSON: For sure. Wait, did you and I meet in 2012?

TREYGER: Maybe even sooner. I started comedy in Chicago in 2009. I don’t know when exactly I met you, but I feel like it was at Town Hall Pub, probably.

ANDERSON: Which was the epicenter of Boystown.

TREYGER: It’s like the one straight bar in Boystown that our friends made as gay as possible.

ANDERSON: And then, of course, I think our friendship really kicked off when we went to go see—

TREYGER: Legally Blonde.

ANDERSON: The high school production of Legally Blonde.

TREYGER: At my alma mater.

ANDERSON: At your alma mater, which is in the suburbs outside of Chicago.

TREYGER: We knew we could hang. We knew we could smoke weed. We have the same interests, I would say.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

TREYGER: We just want weed. We want a bagel. We want drama with women that we’re not into.

ANDERSON: Totally.

TREYGER: You’re never in drama though.

ANDERSON: Well, that’s not totally true. I think I present as the nice guy, but I always love gossip, which you are obsessed with.

TREYGER: I like to know things about everyone and everything.

ANDERSON: Have you always been into gossip? As a kid were you sort of rounding up the girls…?

TREYGER: It’s like an immigrant thing. Once you’re an outsider, you do more observing. I didn’t know what carry-out was, or delivery. We don’t do that. And then I’m at my friend’s house and we’re getting hot dogs delivered to the house, and I’m like, “What the fuck is going on?” But I also was raised on Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Us Weekly.

ANDERSON: So that was your way of understanding American culture.

TREYGER: Yeah. But then my high school group was crazy. It was just a bunch of really thin people calling each other fat. And then I was in the corner being like, “Okay, well, I guess I’ll jump off this bridge.” Then I would tell someone like, “Everyone’s mad at you and they don’t like you.” And then I would get kicked out of the group for being a bitch.

ANDERSON: You’d get in trouble for carrying the message.

TREYGER: That’s a lesson I’ve never learned. I do it over and over again.

ANDERSON: You just had a comedy special come out. Can we talk about that?

TREYGER: I would love to.

ANDERSON: Night Owl.

TREYGER: On Netflix.

ANDERSON: It’s fabulous. I had the honor of coming to the opening night party.

TREYGER: You were there.

ANDERSON: Let’s talk about the snacks first. You had chocolate pretzels that looked like cigarettes that you dipped into vanilla frosting, is that right?

TREYGER: And there was this raspberry thing. There was cookies and cream. This motherfucker, Johnny Bakes, his cakes are gorgeous, beautiful, and delicious. I was so happy.

ANDERSON: Tell me about your experience working on the special. How do you feel like it compares with previous specials you’ve worked on?

TREYGER: That’s such a good question. I have a half-hour special on Comedy Central, and then a half-hour on Netflix on another thing called The Degenerates. And with those, you’re kind of playing the game, there’s a teleprompter, I had my jokes in order, I had my set list. It kind of felt like a pageant.

ANDERSON: Okay.

TREYGER: Because that’s not how I like to perform. So for this new special, I was very specific—no set list. I knew how I was starting and how I was ending. I wanted it to be a night out in New York watching me do stand-up in a basement.

ANDERSON: It felt like that, as someone who attended the taping.

TREYGER: People were eating mozzarella sticks, people were drinking. That’s how I love doing comedy. I don’t perform in theaters.

ANDERSON: It felt like you were just hanging with your friends, which is the best. How are you feeling about the show tonight? I know that you’ve bought art from THNK1994.

TREYGER: I am an art buyer. I do buy art. Damien Davis is probably the artist I have the most work from. But I was wasted one night and there was a Laura Collins painting. Basically it was when Cynthia Nixon was running for office. The person who donated the most, that’s what you were bidding on. If you donated to the campaign, you got the painting. I was wasted and I didn’t think I would win. But I did win. And it was $1,100.

ANDERSON: Okay.

TREYGER: It was like, “What the fuck?”

ANDERSON: Right.

TREYGER: But I’m so happy to have that. I look at it all the time. It brings me so much joy. And if anyone wants to know, do I have a fake Louis Vuitton, Murakami? I do.

ANDERSON: And the Labubu.

TREYGER: I have a Labubu.

ANDERSON: It’s the Summer of Labubu.

TREYGER: It’s embarrassing to be that trendy and obvious, but I got it as a gift and they’re cute. I’m happy to be part of the culture.

ANDERSON: It’s fun to just have a little stuffed animal by your waist.

TREYGER: I bet there are some people that see a Labubu and go, “That’s a woman who needs help.”

ANDERSON: But that’s also part of the fun. What does summer have in store for you?

TREYGER: My goal is the same every summer.

ANDERSON: What’s that?

TREYGER: To find a body of water. But I’m not a snob. I’ll public pool, I’ll hotel, I’ll pay for a day pass, I’ll hang with a friend. I’ll bring something, I’ll pay for something. But that’s always my goal.

ANDERSON: It’s time to swim.

TREYGER: Also, I haven’t gone to a baseball game this summer. That’s a goal as well.

ANDERSON: For sure.

TREYGER: And maybe dance. We need to go dance.

ANDERSON: Let’s go dance.