1979–present
Who Is Nate Bargatze?
Stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze is known for his 2024 televised special Your Friend, Nate Bargatze on Netflix among other performances. Originally from Nashville, Bargatze dropped out of college and worked a series of odd jobs before pursuing comedy full-time. Developing a deadpan delivery and family-friendly persona, he surged in popularity after his routine appeared in the Netflix series The Standups in 2017. He received a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album for 2021’s The Greatest Average American. In September 2025, he will host the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Nate Bargatze
BORN: March 25, 1979
BIRTHPLACE: Nashville, Tennessee
SPOUSE: Laura Bargatze (2006–present)
CHILD: Harper
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries
Early Life
Nate Bargatze was born on March 25, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up in the city’s Old Hickory neighborhood.
His father, Stephen, has performed as a magician for more than 40 years and worked as a clown at children’s birthday parties. The cover art of Bargatze’s first comedy album,Yelled at By a Clown, features a photo of Stephen in full clown makeup alongside his young son. Bargatze’s mother, Carol, worked in the ticket office at Vanderbilt University.
Stephen and Carol raised their three children—Nate, his brother, Derek, and his sister, Abigail—in a strict Christian household. Bargatze has said he was only allowed to watch clean comedians growing up, with Brian Regan becoming one of his primary inspirations. “I just can’t imagine cursing in front of your parents,” Bargatze said in 2023. “Still, even now… I still just couldn’t do that. So that’s how I write. I think I write my comedy to—a lot of it is to make my parents laugh.”
He remembers telling his favorite joke as early as age 5 or 6: “‘Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup,’ and the waiter says, ‘Don’t worry, the spider on the bread will get it.’”
Bargatze has said he “wasn’t the best at school” and learned in adulthood that he suffers from dyslexia. He attended DuPont Elementary in Nashville and transferred to Donelson Christian Academy, where his father had a day job teaching history. Bargatze played basketball but was cut from the team three consecutive years.
Athletics clearly not in his future, Bargatze graduated in 1997 and had short stints at Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee and Western Kentucky University, where he dropped out after failing all of his classes in his first semester. He worked a series of odd jobs, including mattress deliveryman and as a meter reader for a water company, before discovering his comedy calling.
Comedy Career: Stand-up Tours and TV Specials
Inspired by comedians who appeared on Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold’s syndicated radio program The Bob & Tom Show, Bargatze became interested in becoming a funnyman himself. Sometime around 2002, he and his friend Michael Clay moved to Chicago, where they lived in a rat-infested apartment they called “The Dugout” and took comedy classes at The Second City. The famous improv club has helped launch the careers of many star comedians, including Bill Murray, Amy Poehler, Mike Myers, and Steve Carell.
The following year, Bargatze switched to stand-up and attended Jim Rauth’s Comedy College in Chicago. He performed his first set in April 2003 and booked other small gigs in the city and Nashville.
Bargatze knew he would need to prove himself under a bigger spotlight if he wanted to make comedy his full-time career. So in 2004, he moved to New York City and began working as a barker for the Boston Comedy Club—which hosted performers such as Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr—in exchange for time onstage. However, Bargatze’s late-night sets drew very small crowds and little money, so he also worked as a FedEx driver and dog walker to pay bills.
Soon enough, though, more people began to notice Bargatze’s talent.
Late-night Appearances and First TV Specials
In 2007, Bargatze made his TV debut on CMT Comedy Stage, a late-night show on the popular country music channel. The set helped him land an additional appearance on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham in 2008.
Around this time, the still relatively unknown Bargatze booked a slot on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. “Me and my wife were in the car, and we get there. Like, there’s people standing outside of 30 Rock trying to get autographs and pictures,” he recalled. “They start walking to the car, and I’m like, ‘This is not going to be good, ’cause I’m not famous at all.’... So they all walk up and I open the door, and they all just turn around, they go, ‘It’s nobody.’ And they walk away.”
The actual set went much more smoothly, and Bargatze later made three appearances on O’Brien’s TBS talk show Conan. The career momentum continued as Bargatze won at New York and Boston comedy festivals in 2010.
Bargatze moved again, this time to Los Angeles, and released his first comedy album, Yelled at By a Clown, in 2012. He quickly made a fan in late-night emcee Jimmy Fallon, who welcomed Bargatze to The Tonight Show in 2013 and invited Bargatze to perform on his Clean Cut Comedy Tour. Bargatze had solidified himself as a mostly-for-all-ages comedian, relying on observational humor as opposed to obscenities and innuendo in his jokes.
Following Fallon’s tour, Bargatze returned to Nashville and released another TV special, Full Time Magic, in 2015.
Comedy Superstar: Streaming Specials and Grammy Nomination
Bargatze’s popularity surged in 2017 after he was featured in the debut of The Standups, a Netflix series profiling rising comedians. “It changed everything. You try to always be in the moment and pay attention to stuff as it happens, but that was crazy,” he told Forbes. “The week after it came out, I was at Tacoma Comedy Club. It wasn’t like the club was sold out, but it was more crowded than I thought it was going to be.”
Netflix took notice as well, working with Bargatze again for specials The Tennessee Kid (2019) and The Greatest Average American (2021). The latter earned Bargatze his first and only Grammy nomination to date, for Best Comedy Album.
Bargatze’s next special, Hello World, debuted in January 2023 and became the most-watched comedy special on Amazon Prime Video with almost 3 million viewers in its first month. His star power rising, Bargatze appeared as a guest host on Saturday Night Live in October 2023, during which he gave a humorous portrayal of George Washington. He hosted the long-running late-night sketch show again a year later.
Also in 2024, Bargatze released his most recent Netflix special, Your Friend, Nate Bargatze, and hosted his own holiday variety special, Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas on CBS.
In May 2025, Bargatze released his first book, Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind, and hit the road for an accompanying 59-city standup tour running through December.
2025 Emmys Host and Upcoming Movie
A sign of his wide appeal, Bargatze was selected in April 2025 as the host of the upcoming 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. “It’s a huge honor to be asked to host such an iconic awards show, and I’m beyond excited to work with CBS to create a night that can be enjoyed by families around the world,” Bargatze said in a statement. The ceremony airs September 14 at 8 p.m. ET.
Just days after the announcement, Bargatze revealed he soon plans to quit standup and pursue a filmmaking career in an interview with The New York Times. The comedian said he envisions, at most, only two more tours and televised specials. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” he said. “I also want to get out of the way. I need to let the next wave of comedians come up.”
To that effect, Bargatze serves as a co-writer and stars in the upcoming comedy movie The Breadwinner, about a stay-at-home dad whose wife (played by Mandy Moore) lands a lucrative business deal on the TV show Shark Tank. The movie has a scheduled release date of March 13, 2026.
Nateland Podcast and Entertainment Company
Another of Bargatze’s passion projects is his podcast, The Nateland Podcast. Started in 2020, the program features Bargatze and his co-hosts Brian Bates, Aaron Weber, and Dusty Slay as they discuss pop culture and current events.
Bargatze expanded his burgeoning media empire with the 2023 formation of The Nateland Company. The family-friendly entertainment brand produces content for movies and TV, music, podcasts, and more.
The comedian also has aspirations to build a “Nateland” theme park, inspired by and located at the site of the defunct Opryland USA in Nashville. He lists entertainment magnate Walt Disney as one of his primary inspirations. “I want to make some movies and continue to tour and then hopefully build a world here,” he told The Tennessean. “You see Universal Studios. I kind of would like that to be a Nateland. We can have rides and start making movies here. I think I know what is missing in entertainment, and I think this would work.”
Wife and Daughter
Bargatze has been married to Laura Baines Bargatze since October 2006. The couple met in their early 20s while working at an Applebee’s Grill + Bar, where Nate was a host and Laura was a server. They welcomed a daughter, Harper, in July 2012.
The comedian often includes his family in his standup routine, such as joking about the meaning behind Harper’s name. “So a lot of people ask, ‘Did you name her after Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird?’ And, you know, I’ve never thought about an author a day in my life, so that never occurred to me,” Bargatze quipped.
Bargatze told Parade magazine in December 2024 that he calls Laura and Harper before every show as part of his pre-stage routine, and they always tell him to “be funny.” The phrase inspired the name of his Be Funny Tour in 2024.
Net Worth
Celebrity Net Worth estimates Bargatze’s total fortune at around $40 million as of January 2025. He made plenty of money from the success of his Be Funny Tour, which earned $82.2 million as the highest grossing comedy tour of 2024.
Quotes
- If I’m going to be obsessive over something, then I’ll use it to my advantage.
- I don’t want anybody to feel bad or uncomfortable. It would break my heart if someone thought that I thought I’m better than them. And I want to be for everybody.
- When I’m telling a joke, when you can tell that this many people are listening, that’s one of the cooler feelings.
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Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
