Justine Smith on 7 Days, Surviving as a Female Comedian & Her Incredible Adoption Story

2026-07-19

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Justine Smith has been a fixture of New Zealand comedy for more than 30 years - a Seven Days regular and one of the few women who lasted in a room that pushed most others out.She opens up on the comedy environment younger women were up against, the treatment she swallowed to keep going, and how she turned that guilt into becoming the person the next generation of female comics now comes to. She's also very funny about the rest of it - falling into comedy almost by accident, the terror of her first gig, and...

Justine Smith has been a fixture of New Zealand comedy for more than 30 years - a Seven Days regular and one of the few women who lasted in a room that pushed most others out.

She opens up on the comedy environment younger women were up against, the treatment she swallowed to keep going, and how she turned that guilt into becoming the person the next generation of female comics now comes to. She's also very funny about the rest of it - falling into comedy almost by accident, the terror of her first gig, and three decades of standing in front of a crowd talking about herself for a living.

And she tells the remarkable story of her own beginning: adopted as a baby, and reunited with her sister through a single phone call that almost didn't happen.

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