Breaking into the entertainment industry isn’t easy, especially when you’re building your career from scratch on social media. Some creators burn out before they ever find their footing, while others push through the quiet days and emerge as genuine stars. Stanzi Potenza falls firmly in the latter category.
What started as a creative outlet during lockdown has transformed into a thriving multi-platform career that’s earned her millions of devoted followers. From sketch comedy that’s made people spit out their coffee to a podcast that keeps listeners coming back for more, Stanzi has carved out her own unique space in the digital entertainment landscape.
Here’s everything you need to know about the comedian who calls herself the “sketch comedian from Hell.”
Who is Stanzi Potenza?
Stanzi Potenza is an American comedian, actress, TikToker, YouTuber, and podcaster who’s captured the attention of millions through her sharp wit and versatile character work.
She’s built her reputation on comedy sketch series like Heaven & Hell and Civil War Love Saga, thanks to her ability to slip into wildly different personas with impressive ease. She is based in Boston, Massachusetts and has become one of the most recognisable faces in digital comedy.
Beyond her viral TikTok presence, where she’s amassed over 3.6 million followers, Stanzi has expanded into YouTube with over 2.7 million subscribers as of July 2024. She’s also the co-host of the popular podcast What Fresh Hell is This?, which launched in January 2022. Her acting credits include appearances in Angel Shot: Origins, the Omega Endgame (2022), and Creators for Palestine (2024), plus an uncredited role in the 2016 film The Finest Hours.
Stanzi Potenza Biography
Born on October 17, 1995, Stanzi Julianna Potenza is currently 29 years old. She grew up in Massachusetts, moving around before her family settled in Braintree, a town just south of Boston. Of Italian descent, Stanzi’s childhood was shaped by a significant event: her parents divorced when she was five.
After the divorce, her mother decided to pursue acting, which inadvertently changed Stanzi’s life. When babysitters fell through, her mother would bring Stanzi and her sisters to the theatre. What could’ve been an inconvenience became something magical.
The theatre became their “second home,” and the young girls found themselves drawn into the world of performance. Stanzi has sisters, including her younger sibling Nella, and they all developed a passion for acting from these early theatre experiences.
These formative years, spent watching actors transform in costume rooms and witnessing the magic of live performance, planted seeds that would eventually blossom into Stanzi’s own entertainment career. She began appearing in local productions, including playing Maureen in a 2014 production of Rent for the Company Theatre in Norwell and performing in Bat Boy: The Musical.
Stanzi Potenza Education
Stanzi took her passion for performance seriously, pursuing formal education to hone her craft. She attended the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she studied theatre and quickly distinguished herself as a standout talent. In 2017, she received the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship at the Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival.
When she graduated in 2018, the university awarded her the John J. Conlon Prize in Theatre Arts, their highest honour for theatre students. She even had the distinction of singing the National Anthem at her graduate commencement ceremony. Armed with a Bachelor of Arts degree and impressive credentials, Stanzi was ready to take the next step.
In late 2019, she completed a six-week intensive acting course at the renowned William Esper Studio in New York City. The plan was straightforward: finish the training, move back to Massachusetts, and pursue traditional acting opportunities. But as we all know, 2020 had other plans for everyone.
Stanzi Potenza Career
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the theatre industry in early 2020, Stanzi found herself stuck at home with her carefully crafted plans in ruins. Instead of wallowing in disappointment, she turned to TikTok. What began as a way to combat boredom and serve as a “testing ground” before tackling what she called the “final boss” of YouTube became something much bigger.
She’d joined TikTok in 2019 under the username @stanzipotenza, but it was in January 2020 that everything changed. Her first video went viral, racking up over one million views and giving her a taste of what was possible. Friends had been telling her for years that she should pursue comedy professionally, noting her sharp wit and natural timing. Turns out, they were right.
By December 2020, she was creating content that caught attention beyond just entertainment value. One of her videos, a brilliantly executed 1980s-style infomercial encouraging young people to vote in the Georgia Senate runoff election, was shared by candidate Jon Ossoff himself on his TikTok account.
By January 2021, just a year after her first viral hit, Stanzi had accumulated 565,000 followers and made the leap to full-time content creation. She joined the TikTok Creator Fund and committed herself entirely to building her brand. The decision paid off; by November 2022, she had five videos that each surpassed one million views.
As of now, her TikTok account boasts over 3.6 million followers and more than 185.8 million likes. She describes herself as the “CEO of Hell” in her bio, a cheeky reference that ties into her most popular content series. Her business email, [email protected], handles the sponsorship deals and partnerships that have become a significant income source since 2020.
In February 2021, fellow creator Hassan Khadair urged Stanzi to start cross-posting her content to YouTube using the platform’s YouTube Shorts feature. She was hesitant at first, and initially, the traffic was minimal. But persistence paid off in December 2021 when her channel suddenly exploded, growing from 5,000 subscribers to 500,000 in just two months.
She officially joined YouTube back in March 2014, but it wasn’t until this breakthrough moment that the platform became a central part of her strategy. She’s since published over 571 videos, earning more than 663.8 million views. As of July 2024, her subscriber count has climbed past 2.45 million. She posts between two and six videos weekly across her platforms, maintaining the consistency that’s key to sustained growth.
January 2022 marked another milestone when Stanzi launched What Fresh Hell is This?, a podcast affiliated with the Pod People network. The show features original sketches and humorous observations that have resonated with audiences looking for comedy in audio form.
Stanzi’s creativity doesn’t stop at comedy. In 2022, she dabbled in music by releasing covers of Radiohead’s “Creep” and Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” as singles. These releases showcase her versatility and willingness to explore different artistic avenues.
She’s also built a merchandise business, selling custom products that feature catchphrases and designs tied to her popular series. The merchandise store has become another revenue stream, capitalising on her devoted fanbase’s desire to own a piece of her brand.
Stanzi’s comedy has been categorised by The New York Times as part of “CringeTok,” a group of creators who extensively utilise cringe comedy. Her sketches can take anywhere from a few hours to a whole week, depending on complexity. She’s organised her content into distinct series, each with its own flavour and following.
Heaven & Hell is her most popular series, where she portrays God, Satan, and their respective assistants as they navigate problems in the afterlife. The series satirically addresses everything from political figures to K-pop fandoms, delivering sharp social commentary wrapped in absurdist humour. It’s this series that really cemented her reputation as a skilled character actor.
Civil War Love Saga was one of her first series, depicting a lesbian love affair in the 1800s with period-appropriate dialogue and situations that somehow feel both authentic and hilariously anachronistic.
Other notable series include Family Dinners, Kidnapping Series, Duke Blackwell, Auntie Stan, Call Out News, TokTober, Rich Moms Brunch, and various standalone sketches. She’s created PSAs about mansplaining, slam poetry-inspired “Tinder Bros” videos, and even a memorable sketch of a 911 operator mocking an incompetent criminal.
One particularly notable moment came in November 2022 when talk show host Dr Phil played one of her TikToks during a three-part special on his show.
The video featured Stanzi frantically discussing Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, parodying obsessive true crime fans.
McGraw, apparently missing the satirical nature of the sketch, used it as an example of true crime fandom going too far. The irony wasn’t lost on Stanzi’s fans.
In March 2023, her growing influence landed her a partnership with Lionsgate to promote John Wick: Chapter 4. She created a sketch portraying the action hero’s therapist.
Stanzi Potenza Personal Life
Stanzi is bisexual and identifies as non-binary, using both she/her and they/them pronouns.
She’s been open about her identity with her audience, hoping that her authenticity inspires others.
Despite being constantly in the public eye, Stanzi maintains clear boundaries between her professional content and her romantic life.
Information about her dating history remains private, though she’s hinted at having an ex-partner who was a musician and allegedly wrote an entire album about her. She’s refused to reveal the ex’s name or identify the album, keeping that chapter of her life off social media.
Stanzi has been candid about several health conditions she manages. She has ADHD, receiving her diagnosis in August 2022 after years of symptoms. She later discussed the diagnosis openly on an episode of her podcast, helping reduce stigma around adult ADHD diagnosis.
She also lives with right temporal lobe epilepsy and experiences tonic-clonic seizures, having dealt with epilepsy since she was fifteen years old. Additionally, she struggles with insomnia, which she’s mentioned affects her creative process and daily life.
Despite these challenges, she’s built a remarkably consistent content creation schedule and maintained the energy needed to produce high-quality work across multiple platforms.
Trivia
Stanzi has been “slightly obsessed” with sharks since childhood. Her enthusiasm for these ocean predators earned her recognition from Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, where she was featured as a “Shark Week super fan.”
Stanzi Potenza Net Worth
Like many content creators, Stanzi keeps her exact net worth private. However, she’s built multiple income streams that support her full-time creative career. Sponsored content has been a significant part of her revenue since 2020, with brands recognising the value of her engaged audience.
Her TikTok Creator Fund payments, YouTube ad revenue, podcast income, and merchandise sales all contribute to her earnings. The Lionsgate partnership and other brand collaborations suggest she’s commanding respectable rates for sponsored content.
When you’re reaching millions of people with each post, brands are willing to pay for that access.
For fans of witty, character-driven comedy that doesn’t shy away from social commentary, Stanzi Potenza remains one of the most consistently entertaining voices on the internet.
