LA-based comedian Gini Sikes has appeared at The Comedy Store, The Hollywood Improv, The Ice House—and an alarming number of crime scenes. Before turning to comedy, the award-winning author and journalist for The New York Times, Essence, and PBS interviewed murderers, drug mules, and white supremacists. She put these experiences to good use. As a comic, Gini kills.
Exploring life's dark side was her destiny.
She hails from Wisconsin, home to Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein. Fittingly, Gini got her start at Tiger Beat with a co-worker who spent her days telling girls how to win a boy's heart—and her nights writing love letters to Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker. (They got married.)
Gini was an editor at Metropolis and Mademoiselle, produced documentaries for MTV, and wrote the book 8 Ball Chicks, about a year she embedded with teenage gangs. She is a frequent guest on Investigation Discovery and true-crime podcasts.
Along the way she developed a gallows humor usually reserved for cops, EMTs, and funeral directors. In 2019, Gini traded the mean streets for the stage. Her comedy blends her dark past with a chaotic present. In her so-called Golden Years, Gini discovered there's only one thing scarier than serial killers: men her own age.