She lived in a motel for 3 years as a kid. Here's how she turned it into standup comedy
'I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but I have notes,' jokes Janelle Niles in standup act
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It was one of Janelle Niles's bleakest moments — and so she decided to turn it into a joke.
"Some kids count sheep to sleep. I was counting bedbugs," quipped the 36-year-old about being a homeless preteen and sharing a motel room with her family, as part of a set at a Yuk Yuk's in Ottawa.
Niles was 12 when her family was evicted, forcing them to move into a motel in Ottawa's east end while they awaited social housing.
In 2019, the comedian began bringing challenging moments from her past to the stage. Since then, Niles, who is a Black, Mi'kmaw, two-spirit woman, has cracked up audiences across North America and created the Got Land variety show highlighting Indigenous entertainers.
Now, five years into her career, she's sharing that journey in a piece she produced in collaboration with CBC Ottawa's Creator Network.
For her, reframing upsetting childhood memories through standup comedy allows her to take control of her own narrative.
"I've learned that tragedy plus time equals comedy," said Niles. "If I can make it funny, it loses its power over me."
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Growing up in a motel
In front of a packed audience, Niles shared her family's journey from Sipekne'katik First Nation in Nova Scotia to Ottawa.
She recalls taking the the long train ride to Ontario with her younger sister Lexis and her twin Jileen and what it was like surviving the ensuing years of financial hardship together.
"Our mother fell through the cracks," Jilleen Niles said, explaining that after their mother lost her job, the family of four was placed on Ottawa's housing wait-list and moved into a single motel room.
When Janelle thinks back to those first few weeks in the room, she cringes at the thought of the smell of stale cigarettes and the feel of the scratchy brown sheets.
She still remembers walking into the motel room and thinking one thing: where's the fridge?
'Milk was my security blanket'
On stage, Janelle explained why a homeless 10-year-old was so focused on this question.
"When you're living in chaos, the first thing you ask yourself is, 'What do I have control over?'" she explained.
"Some kids resort to drugs or alcohol to cope. I resorted to my strange addiction — milk."
Niles says she'd learned from a young age to cope with the stress of her family's financial instability by slowing down and drinking a cold glass of dairy.
"Milk was my security blanket and my medicine. It soothed me," she recalled. "But how was I going to keep my milk cold with no refrigerator?"
To manage, Niles would voyage to the motel's ice machine every two hours to replenish the cubes in the sink where she kept the milk. Her twin Jilleen often joined her and recalled the adult situations they'd encounter along the way.
"The motel room was at least six or seven doors down from where you get ice. So you're passing these doors, you're hearing screaming, you're seeing scantily clad people and drug paraphernalia was scattered on the ground," she recalled.
"There were police raids that happened while we were there. It was just not a safe environment for children at all."
At night, the other residents made it hard for the family to get a good night's sleep.
"We'd hear domestic disputes, slamming and banging of doors, sirens … lots of screaming and yelling, it did not stop. Then we wake up at seven o'clock to get ready to go to school and it would all start again," said Jilleen.
The first thing Janelle would do after a restless night was take her milk out of the sink and pour it over her cereal. For a brief moment she felt calm.
"I learned to control the uncontrollable by finding something to distract me from my hellscape," she recalled.
Hotel hilarity
It was also in the motel that Janelle found her love of comedy, turning on the TV at the end of each day to devour hours of standup.
Richard Prior and Paul Mooney were some of her favourites and she remembers being fascinated by how they could transform their tumultuous childhoods into comedic material.
"I never thought all of those comedy shows that we would watch were moulding my sister into the comedian she is today," reflected Jilleen Niles.
"I am so happy she found a way to laugh through trauma. Humour is one of the Grandfather teachings and Janelle is harnessing that power to heal," added Jilleen, who now works as a mental health intake worker at Ottawa's Wabano Centre for Indigenous Health.
"My Black side and my Indigenous side, we heal through humour. It's just part of our culture. I was born to do this," said Janelle.
Got housing
At Yuk Yuk's, Niles closed her set by explaining how her family eventually left the motel.
"And then one day, just like when we left Nova Scotia, Mom said, "Pack up your stuff. We got housing," Niles said about the move to Ottawa Community Housing after a three-year wait.
When she looks back on her time at the motel, Niles says she sees a strong young girl trying to make sense of a difficult situation.
After her performance wrapped, Niles exited the stage to the sound of applause and treated herself to her favourite dairy beverage.
"I am forever grateful now to open my fridge and grab a tall glass of homogenized milk," she said, taking a big gulp.
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