“Stuttering has taught me so much about myself in perspective, both in personal and professional endeavors, that it really was something I thought was a curse, but it ended up being a gift,” he said.<\/p>\n
JAY LENO CRITICIZES MODERN LATE-NIGHT COMEDY FOR ALIENATING HALF THE AUDIENCE WITH PARTISAN POLITICS<\/a><\/p>\n Stand-up comedian Drew Lynch spoke to Fox News Digital about how his stutter was the “gift” that kicked off his comedy success.\u00a0 (Variety\/Getty)<\/p>\n Some may remember the 34-year-old comedian from his standout run on “America\u2019s Got Talent<\/a>” in 2015, where he finished second despite a near-debilitating stutter.<\/p>\n During the show, Lynch leaned into his stutter, making it part of his act and winning over both the audience and the judges.<\/p>\n In his first audition, stand-up comic and show judge Howie Mandel<\/a> hit the Golden Buzzer, sending Lynch past the opening rounds and into the most competitive stages of the show.<\/p>\n Since finishing as runner-up, Lynch has built a thriving stand-up career, amassing about 9 million followers across social media platforms. He has released several specials, including his latest, “The Stuttering Comedian<\/a>,” which debuted earlier this summer.<\/p>\n Lynch told Fox News Digital the special gives audiences a personal look at the stutter and the struggles that shaped his career.<\/p>\n “And it’s just nice to have all of these answers to questions people might have, the history of the injury or how it happened, how I ended up stuttering, because I got it when I was an adult. Most people who stutter, they have it since childhood, or it’s neurological, it’s hereditary. And so, it was just nice to be able to put it all in one place.”<\/p>\n In one joke, he quipped, “For a long time, a lot of people, they called me the stuttering comedian. And that\u2019s because, for over 10 years, I had a really bad publicist.”<\/p>\n “But I also had a really bad stutter,” he added.<\/p>\n Lynch noted the irony of the title, saying, “I don’t stutter that much anymore.” Viewers who watch his latest special and compare it to his delivery during “America\u2019s Got Talent” might think he has overcome it completely.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Over the years, as I’ve just, you know, I’ve done a lot of rehabilitation, speech therapy, physical therapy,” he said. “I’ve seen like, just so many medical professionals to try to improve it because I just didn’t want it to be this thing that wore me down. I didn’t want it to be a thing that was such a definition of my life.”\u00a0<\/p>\n CBS HOST POURS COLD WATER ON LIBERAL OUTRAGE TO COLBERT CANCELLATION, SAYS LATE-NIGHT INDUSTRY IS ‘BROKEN’<\/a><\/p>\n Stand-up comic Drew Lynch put himself on the map when he won 2nd place in “America’s Got Talent” in 2015. (Bryan Steffy)<\/p>\n Lynch said he developed the stutter after a softball accident as a young adult.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It was just a freak accident where a grounder took a bad hop,” he told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It hit me in my throat, which you would think would be like, \u2018Oh man, that’s bad, and that’s not enough to do some damage.\u2019 But when I fell back, I hit my head on the ground,” he said, noting the impact caused a concussion, though he didn\u2019t find out until it was too late.<\/p>\n The next day, after his roommate noticed something was wrong, Lynch went to the hospital. Doctors ran tests and found he had suffered “a vocal contusion with a significant concussion,” he said.<\/p>\n Doctors initially told Lynch he would fully recover. But after months with little improvement, another doctor gave him bad news.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We saw a neurologist sometime later who said, \u2018Yeah, you never properly healed your brain. You had bruising on your brain that you just never healed\u2026 You experienced a traumatic brain injury<\/a> and you never healed it properly.\u2019”\u00a0<\/p>\n The diagnosis upended Lynch\u2019s life. He could no longer speak normally, and it also ended the acting career he had been pursuing for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n “So, when the injury happened and I had every rep that was at the time representing me, express that they didn’t want to work with me anymore until I got better,” he told Fox News Digital, though he said he understood why.<\/p>\n “It sounds harsh, but it’s also like, okay, well how are you going to send an actor into a room where they’re stuttering and they can’t \u2013 they have no control over their motor skills on the left side of their body?\u2019”<\/p>\n Lynch said that early on he held out hope for recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n “But when that didn\u2019t happen, that was when it became like panic city,” he said.<\/p>\n![\"Drew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/drew-comedian-stutter.jpg\")
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