NATASHA ROTHWELL OUT FRONT

The creator-performer moves from beloved supporting roles to center stage in a deeply personal new comedy series

- JUDY BERMAN

AN ALLERGY TO OVER-THE-COUNTER PAIN medication changed Natasha Rothwell's life. Soon after she moved to Los Angeles, in 2015, to write for Issa Rae's era-defining HBO dramedy Insecure, she had some dental work done and found herself in so much pain that she popped an Advil and crossed her fingers that it would be OK. It wasn't. Realizing that the loud, ragged breathing she was suddenly hearing was her own, she drove herself to Cedars-Sinai in a panic.

The solo hospital trip forced the epiphany that, though rarely alone, she was profoundly lonely. "For the better part of my 20s, I was running around like a heat-seeking missile, trying to find the one," she recalls. “Being alone was the thing I thought I was afraid of." In search of love, she'd neglected friendships, family bonds, herself. "But in that moment, I was like 'Oh no, I'm lonely. It's not that I don't have someone here-it's that I didn't reach out to someone.""