The comedian Kyla Cobbler on juggling Instagram fame and death threats from Trump supporters

A pavement appears on my monitor. It appears that the comedian Kyla Cobbler pocket-dialled me, but the view soon rights itself and I can see her face beaming at me. She didn’t want to take a Zoom call in her Barcelona flat as it was too hot, deciding to take it outside instead. Blue sky and palm trees are in the background. It’s like watching her speaking to her 158,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares unfiltered, mischievous views on dating, wellness and womanhood.
Originally from Ballincollig in Co Cork, Cobbler left home aged 18 and moved first to Greece and then to Italy, via Australia, before finally settling in Spain. She now lives in Barcelona with her South African boyfriend and one-eyed cat, Clopsy (short for Cyclops). She’s fluent in Italian but gets by in the Catalonian city by using a mash-up of Italian and Spanish.
Cobbler, 33, is open about her dyslexia and admits that she chose the university of life over further education. “I found it difficult to learn at school, but when I started to travel I learnt about life by osmosis,” she says.
She’s embedded in the expat community in Barcelona and many of her expat friends frequent the Comedy Clubhouse on Carrer dels Canvis Nous, where she initially worked as a bartender but now performs.
While Cobbler appears to have become famous overnight she has actually grown her audience since her twenties. “I was a lunatic back then,” she says. “I was out drinking and going on dates and throwing caution to the wind. Now I’m involved with this amazing group of women and men at the club and it’s such a gift.”
Her comedic stock shot up three years ago when she progressed from doing comedy online to doing it on stage. “I started off by doing online sketches and it grew from there,” she says. “Before, I would never have imagined myself on stage as a stand-up, taking up space like that. I never considered it.”
It was through her presence on social media that she got to know other comics. “I did a podcast with the comedian Mike Rice and he was the first person to call me ‘a comedian’. I was like, I’m not a comedian. And he was like, you are. He said, ‘You’re not doing stand-up, but you’re writing material and performing it and pretending to be characters — that’s comedy.’ I was like, yeah, I guess so.”One night, after attending some shows in Barcelona with Rice, she took to the mike and that, as they say, was that.
Cobbler’s father is a taxi driver and her mother works at the Mahon Point shopping centre in Cork. She comes from a long line of hard workers and it was when her 97-year-old grandmother, Mona Magennis, died that she re-evaluated her life.
“Seeing my grandmother at the end of her life was such an honour,” she says. “It gave me such an appreciation for the light of life and the thought that I could do something special like be a comedian. That was the moment I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’”
As well as performing comedy, Cobbler is into health and fitness. She is training for the Dublin marathon on October 27 and wellness is one of the things she likes to joke about. “I’m not shitting on the health industry because there’s something to be said for it, but I feel like 80 per cent of it is common sense,” she says. “I don’t want a woman with an eight-pack sitting on a yoga mat telling me that water is good for me. Of course I know that vegetables are better than Mars bars. I’m not an idiot.”
Has she been trolled online? “Old men are the main trolls, but if someone is speaking to me negatively that’s really a reflection on them. I try not to be too harsh on them because they’re obviously struggling,” she says. “It’s easy to get angry and make it about yourself. In my twenties I would have dealt with it differently, but now I pick my battles. For example, I have no interest in engaging with someone who is upset about my nipples being on show.”
For context, Cobbler often goes without a bra and likes to swim naked. “When I’m in the water for me I’m in the womb of mother nature and I won’t let the patriarchal system make me feel bad about it,” she says.
“I’m not naked on the beach in the middle of 50 people, I go down to a quieter section of the beach. It’s a beautiful experience and I’m living in Spain, I’m not in west Cork. Sometimes I go home to Ireland and I don’t wear a bra and I see people’s reaction. I just tell them that they’re sexualising me.”
When Cobbler posted online her thoughts on the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, her account quickly became ablaze with angry replies. To paraphrase, her post said, ‘In fairness to the Trump supporters, they stick to their guns.’ “I got a death threat. It was so dumb,” she says. “If I’m being honest, I’m a bit ignorant when it comes to politics. If I had a genuine stance on it I would have fought my corner more. I know this is going to shock you because I’m a comedian, but I was only joking.”
There’s been great interest in Cobbler’s upcoming tour, Gone Rogue. Her Dublin show sold out so fast and was in such demand that it was upgraded from the Liberty Hall Theatre to the larger capacity Ambassador Theatre. There are veteran stand-ups who have not experienced that, or had that opportunity. “I’m only just in the f***ing door. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel at ease,” she says.
She hopes to break into the Edinburgh and Australian fringe festivals and experience the comedy scene in South Africa. She would also like to record a comedy special, but right now she’s enjoying her success. “I’m so excited that I get to bring my show to the people who got me where I am today — the people in the smaller parishes like Limerick and Mayo and Killarney,” she says.
“I want to put on the best show because it’s a horrendous time to be alive. I want to bring the craic for an hour and enjoy every minute of it. I feel like I’m going out with my friends. It’s a great show and I say that confidently.”
Gone Rogue tours Ireland through September; mcd.ie