Lilly Singh Shares Her First YouTube Collab, Sketch She Wrote & More

I only remember it 'cause I completely ripped it off

of You Got Served.

This is it, you ready for this?

Okay.

Just saying.

[light music]

Hey Teen Vogue, this is Lilly Singh

and these are some of my firsts.

Mm, mhmm, mhmm, mhmm.

I remember my first outfit for middle school.

I wore a white outfit, a white top that was very very tight

with tight jeans that were skinny jeans,

I think, maybe, possibly.

But here's the real thing.

I put lip liner just on the outside with no lipstick inside

and to pull my hair back, I used a shoelace

because that was all the rage.

So a fresh white shoelace was in my hair,

and in the yearbook picture, you best believe I looked like

a Barbie doll that doesn't look good.

Also, my hair was straightened

and the way I straightened it,

because I didn't know how to do it back then,

is I used to lay on a mattress like this

and my friend came in with an actual iron

and just ironed my hair.

So it was ironed from here on down, but not the scalp.

So needless to say, I was killing it.

The first time I visited the US was Buffalo,

does that count?

It's right there next to Canada.

Solely, solely, to eat at Cheesecake Factory

because growing up, we didn't have one where I lived

so we had to cross the border.

So I'd be like, Okay, call my friends up.

Are we gonna do this today?

It's gonna be a two hour trek.

We'd get together, get our passports, pack our bags

to go get that Cheesecake Factory, or to get a good sale

across the border.

That was the first time I ever went to the US.

I'm very proud, very proud of those sales.

I remember I got a pair of Chucks for 20 bucks

and I was like,

Oh, the last four hours have been so worth it.

My first trip to India was probably when I was really young,

like five, six, to visit my parents' family

and they live in Punjab, which is Northern India.

But where they live, where my mom,

the village my mom is from, this is what you have to do.

You have to fly to Delhi, which is 20 hours,

then you have to drive eight hours once you land.

So it is a trek and a half to get there.

I don't remember much from those visits,

besides, I do remember one thing.

I'd always have to go visit family there

and at that time, my Punjabi wasn't very good

so I couldn't really understand what people were saying,

and they would all force me to eat biscuits.

I just vividly remember

any time I went to my family's house,

I had to eat the biscuits and I,

they put the biscuits in front of me and I'd be like,

I just ate four biscuits over there.

You want me to eat these four?

I did actually hide the biscuits in my pocket once

and I left with them and I crumbled them

on the street when I left.

This is a true thing that I did.

[Lilly laughing]

The first time I performed in front of people

was when I was around, I think eight or nine years old.

My sister's friends were over,

and I don't know why I did it.

They just thought I was adorable and cute and kinda bratty

and they were just like, Entertain us

and I just started saying some random jokes.

This is the joke I said.

My mom always used to have these Buns of Steel videos,

which were workout videos,

and I saw a, I think it was a fork or,

I saw something made of metal.

And all I did, it was very simple,

I took it and I touched my butt

and I said, I have buns of steel, and they laughed.

And that was my first performance that validated me.

Look how far I've come.

My first live performance was probably in 2011 or 12,

once I had started YouTube.

No, I lie, I lie!

[Lilly imitates rewind sound]

My first live performance was in high school

for the talent show, and that's where I first danced

with a dance crew, and I discovered

that I'm bomb as hell at dancing.

And it was, I was the only girl and it was four other guys

and we were just jamming and I remember feeling such a rush

from performing, and I knew from then,

I wanna be on stage and I wanna perform.

I mean, do I remember the dance, do I remember moves?

I do remember moves.

I only remember it 'cause I completely ripped it off

of You Got Served, that's why I remember it.

I completely did the dance.

This is it, you ready for this?

Okay.

Just saying.

The first sketch I wrote is actually up

on my YouTube channel, because I didn't write sketch

before I started YouTube,

and I believe it is The Official Guide to Brown Girls,

and it is very long, and probably bad,

and there's way too much setup, and it's very bad.

But it is up on YouTube and it looks like I shot it

on a potato, so if you wanna go look at it, please enjoy.

Hold on tight, 'cause you know it's gonna be

quite the emotional roller coaster.

What's cooking, good looking?

[Lilly screaming]

The first song I wrote, 'cause you should know,

as a younger person, my rap name was Lil Lilly.

Obviously, I know there's a lot of Lil's,

but no one has the L-I-L L-I-L repetition,

so I'd like to believe that it's cooler for me, Lil Lilly.

The first song I wrote was actually called I'm Ill

and because I have no shame and I hate myself,

it's also up on YouTube as a very serious music video.

And it goes like this, it goes,

♪ I'm ill, I'm ill ♪

♪ I'm ill, ill, I-I-I-I-I-I Lilly ♪

That's what was my rhyming.

I just rhymed ill and Lil together and stuttered my voice,

and honestly it's a banger, it's a banger.

You should check it out.

The first time I knew I wanted to be a performer

was actually way after I started performing,

because when I first started performing, I was like,

Do I like this or does this make me wanna throw up

and constantly gives me diarrhea?

I have not decided yet.

And then I think it was when I started my world tour,

Trip to Unicorn Island,

that's when I started consistently performing,

that's when I decided that,

Oh actually, I can deal with the nerves

and I can deal with the pressure

and I love this enough to deal with the rest of that.

Prior to that moment, I couldn't have said that truthfully,

but I think in 2015, when I went on that tour,

I really decided that this is what I wanna do.

Oh, ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha.

My first on-stage mishap was definitely with my dance team.

We were a bhangra dance team, which is Punjabi dancing,

and there was a stunt.

The worst thing you can do is finish a routine with a stunt

because then it's like, if this goes wrong,

everything you did prior to this doesn't even matter,

and bhangra's so tiring.

So this was the stunt.

It's not even hard, it's not even hard, okay?

It's that someone would crouch, two people would crouch.

It'd be a crouching person

and a slightly less crouching person

and I'd have to step on both, kinda like Simba style,

it's like Pride Rock.

And I'd just have to step on all of them and pose

and that's all I, that's all I had to do.

I just had to take two steps.

It's not a hard thing to do, okay?

So I'm exhausted at the end of this performance.

I'm like, I'm so out of shape, why did I agree to this?

And I see them crouching and I'm like, No!

So I take the step up

and I literally just slide right off them.

But here's the thing, I don't fall.

No no, 'cause I'm too selfish, I'm too selfish to do that.

There was someone next to me and I grabbed his hair.

I grab his hair like a railing and I took him down with me

and here's the thing, at that moment,

the reporter who was covering the performance

took the picture and it was in the newspaper the next day

of me, and his face is literally being face tucked.

[Lilly laughing]

Anyways, I have that picture framed, it's pretty sick.

[Lilly laughing]

Good times, good times, yeah.

My first red carpet, I wanna say, was for a movie premiere

that I was not in.

I wanna say that I just was really fascinated

by red carpets living in Toronto.

I wanna say that I might've even flown from Toronto

for a movie premiere in which I knew no one in the movie.

I didn't know anyone associated with the movie,

but I just got invited for the first time ever.

And as someone that lived in Toronto,

I literally packed my bags, bought a ticket,

here's the real gag though, right?

It was for a movie, I wanna say one of the Hunger Games,

and they canceled the actual picture-taking part

of the red carpet because of world news.

So I had flown from Toronto, bought an outfit,

paid for everything myself

and I didn't get to take a picture on the red carpet.

I died in the Hunger Games that day.

[Lilly laughing]

My first YouTube collab,

besides me collabing with myself in a wig?

My first YouTube collab was with myself in a wig.

Most of my videos are just,

people, I feel, are hard to work with sometimes.

I have to schedule, accommodate to their schedule

and small talk them when they come,

so I usually collab with myself in a wig or beard

and that's kind of my vibe.

The first time my family watched one of my videos

was probably the trend Stuff People Say,

it was Stuff Punjabi Mothers Say.

And I'm not sure if they watched it

'cause they were mad or confused.

I honestly think what it was is that someone else

that lived somewhere called them and said,

Did you know your daughter's making videos online?

And that's the only time they bothered to care

to know what I was doing

and they watched it because of that.

And then they instantly took credit once it was good.

We supported her from day one, I tell you.

The first time I ever saw myself in a magazine

was actually when I was on the cover

of a Canadian publication,

and the real gag is I had never got magazine offers.

I moved to LA and literally, I kid you not, six days

after moving to LA, I flew back to Toronto

to shoot the cover of a Canadian magazine.

I was like, Oh, playing hard to get.

We want what we can't have anymore.

But it was a cover of a Canadian magazine,

I think it was Elle Canada, I wanna say.

It was very cool.

It was a cover with a whole bunch of rad women

and I was really nervous, and I posed very awkwardly.

I looked like there was a broom up my butt for sure.

The first time I was recognized in public

was probably at the mall.

That's when I used to go to malls.

Malls are very, they give me anxiety now

because I feel like I don't wanna be recognized in a mall,

especially 'cause I've had people follow me

and do weird things and take pictures of me.

I'm kidding, I feel so special low key,

but sometimes it's a little frustrating.

So probably at the mall

and I feel like I probably fangirled more, like,

You know me?

Can I take a picture with you?

'What video of mine do you like?

And they were just like, Okay, I just wanted to say hi.

They were trying to get away from me.

So I was probably very uncool.

Now when people come up to me though,

it's a mix of them being really excited to meet me

and them thinking I'm someone else.

People think I'm Priyanka Chopra,

people think I'm Liza Koshy,

people think, Aren't you that girl that was on 'New Girl'?

It's just, there's a lot.

There's slightly more options now, so I get everything.

Sometimes people will have whole conversations with me,

whole conversations, and they'll compliment me

and I'll feel so dope, and literally, I kid you not,

literally they'll leave the conversation, they'll be like,

Oh my God, that's sick.

Anyways, tell Nick Jonas I love him.

And I'm like, What the hell are you talking about?

You think...

Literally, 10 minute conversation.

My first big career setback,

in my opinion, although I've had many,

is probably when I was in an NBC pilot

called Bright Futures that didn't go forward,

because I loved that show so so much,

it was an ensemble cast.

But I have to just add a little bit of motivation into this,

because it was that failure that actually resulted

in me getting my own late night show.

That's what got NBC onto me, so I really believe

that setbacks are not setbacks.

They're just steps towards the actual goal.

The first time I met The Rock was at the MTV Movie Awards,

I wanna say 2015-ish or 14-ish, somewhere along there.

I can truthfully say one of the best days of my life

and the number one thing on my bucket list.

A day I will never forget, a feeling I will never forget,

the amount of tears, I will never forget.

Thank you so much Teen Vogue, that was my firsts.

I hope you enjoyed it, if you care at all

about me and my firsts, and if you did, ha ha, sick.