You Bring the Spliff, Comedian Jade Catta-Preta Will Bring the Fire

Drawn to the comedy community, Jade Catta-Preta took a job bartending at The Store and soon moved into working out sets, making her the first female employee to take the legendary stage. She’s gone on to perform worldwide in both English and Portuguese, landed shows like Girl Code, Punk’d, and The Soup, and was tapped to guest judge on Netflix’s Cooking with Cannabis. Her hustle was, and still is, the exact opposite of a “hot mess.”

Her newest step into the reality world puts Jade in the host and judge seat as the heat gets kicked up the Scoville scale on Hulu’s Hotties, a dating/cooking show hybrid that gives you cottonmouth just watching it. Could there be a marijuana element added to the next season? We talked to Jade about that, her special jaded. and the musical version coming out next month, and of course, her love affair with marijuana. 

High Times: Did you get the gig at The Comedy Store because you wanted to be a comedian or did having a job there turn you into one?

Jade Catta-Preta: Kind of both. The first time I went to The Comedy Store, [comedian] Sandy Danto brought me there. I had got a job for National Lampoon doing a clip show and he was like, I think you have a comedy cadence. I didn’t really want to go, but then we got super high. It was actually one of the first times I had smoked California weed. We went to The Comedy Store and there was this crazy sense of familiarity like I’d been there before or something. I was so drawn to the building itself and the history of it all. I just knew I had to be there.

Grateful you felt that pull because it all led to your special jaded., which is so damn funny. How are you feeling now that it’s out?

I’m glad I’m done with it! I’m ready to graduate! I did it in the middle of COVID and there are a lot of jokes within it that I don’t feel as connected to anymore, so I can’t wait to make the next one a little more personal. I had it so memorized though; I was like, it’s never gonna be this good again. I also had a full band and did a musical version so I’ll be releasing that special on a website called Moment.co on October 20^th. I’m so excited and after I release that, I’ll never release anything again! I’ll just do podcasts forever.

You say that now, but that’s probably how people feel when they push out that first baby.

True, and now I get to kind of focus on myself and what I actually want to say. Like, how do I actually wanna feel? I would like to share a little more of myself.

Then it’s settled, you’ll release more. Glad we talked this through. In your special you sing a song about what’s not chill, but what is chill after you hit a joint?

I think everything is chill after you smoke weed, especially after you eat a great meal. If I didn’t have weed, I would just be a manic freak. Weed makes me feel normal. Weed makes me not overthink everything and it gives me a break from myself. I love the community and bonding aspect of weed too. The only thing I don’t like to do when I’m high is perform, which is funny. I think I get off on comedy because there is this sense of control. Even if it’s a false sense, I love that.

You also mentioned in the special that when your parents smoke weed, you get named Jade. Joke or fact?

It’s kind of a joke. My dad was an artist, so he had a lot of other artist friends that were always around. He made holograms and was one of the pioneers in the 80’s. There were always a bunch of crazy dudes around who loved rock-and-roll and weed. It’s funny because they did everything they could to keep it away from us, obviously, but my dad had those roach scissors and my sister and I knew what it was. I think I romanticized Pink Floyd and Cheech and Chong, just that era of potheads that were cool and doing creative shit. That is kind of always what I aspired to be.

What’s your preferred method of marijuana intake?

One hundred percent, it’s a spliff. I hate cigarettes, but it’s just a tiny bit of tobacco. I love the act of rolling it, it’s like a little weird thing I enjoy. I like blunts too because I’m from the east coast originally. It’s funny because in L.A., you smoke a blunt and when it’s almost done, you toss it out. In New York, you get it down to the point where you can barely hold it and people are like, “Don’t throw that roach out!”

What strain do you go for or do you switch it up?

Sativa. I can’t do a Jack Herer though because I will clean my whole house with a toothbrush. I’m not really a big fan of indica because it makes me sleep on the couch and I hate getting sleepy from weed. I like when I feel a little pick-me-up when I smoke. I like right when it hits you because it’s like, ahhhhh. I feel like if I’m home and it’s after 5 pm, whatever I’m doing after that, I’m usually stoned. I should cook more but I’m like, how do I get this condiment in my mouth? I’ll just grab turkey and put mustard on it like, I cooked this! The stuff I get into is ridiculous and mostly just grabbing a bunch of stuff and putting it in my mouth all at once. Then chewing.

What if someone was like, we want you to name a strain. What would you call it?

I’d name it something Brazilian like, Alegría, because it means happy, but it’s also like, what is that word? In Italian it means “cheerfulness,” so I love that. I saw that [Seth] Rogen was doing a weed strain and it’s like, I want to do a weed strain! What a cool space to be in, even though I guess I don’t know strain names anymore. I used to be like, give me that Blue Dream or lemme do that Lamb’s Breath. Lamb’s Breath, by the way, is my favorite strain of all-time. It’s an old and perfect strain that was hard to find even before it was legalized. I think it’s a very expensive to produce because it’s the perfectly balanced hybrid. Something like that. Can you also put somewhere that dispensaries can send weed to me whenever they want? That’s more chill than a stranger that’s like, “Hey I like your butt photos, here’s some weed.”

Putting that all into the universe right now. Hotties definitely pairs well with a sativa. It also really takes your mind off of everything but laughing at people.

That’s the best part, you can get super fucking high and watch my special and Hotties and it’ll be even better. That’s the kind of TV I like. People make fun of me because I love reality TV, but it just puts me in such a calm spot. I’m also voyeuristic so I love watching people that know they’re going to be watched. I like seeing what happens to their personality and how they portray themselves. I read somewhere that Hotties is all fake, but honestly, it’s the least fake thing I’ve ever done. Everything happened as it happened. Everything I said in the moment, they kept. There’s editing, but they didn’t take things out or create some “dating moment.” We’re hoping that if we get a second season, it gets even hotter and weirder and maybe people are drinking. Or maybe, there can even be a weed aspect added! You never know!

Do you think you have more burning butthole jokes in you?

I always have more butthole jokes, but I don’t know if I have any more hot pepper jokes. My friend J. Chris Newberg, who’s an incredible writer and comic, wrote on the show too and we were definitely running out of pepper puns by the end.