Hannah Gadsby on healing through comedy, new memoir and saying something "people wanted to hear"

Emmy Award-winning stand-up comic Hannah Gadsby doesn't hide away from speaking in a raw and unfiltered way about difficult topics in her life— like childhood trauma, sexual and physical abuse. She writes about it all in her new memoir, "Ten Steps to Nanette."  

Gadsby started writing the memoir before she wrote her hit Netflix special "Nanette" and became a global stand-up phenomenon. 

In Nanette, which debuted on Netflix in 2018, Gadsby addressed her own trauma and the nature of comedy itself. 
 
"And I thought that would turn people off and what happened is that something I was saying people wanted to hear," Gadsby told CBS News' Anthony Mason. 

At age 40, Gadsby suddenly was an overnight sensation. "Nanette" won her an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award and a book deal.  

She also quietly got married last year to Jenney Shamash. The two work closely together. 

"She's also my producer. She's side of stage. She can cut the lights and cut the mic any time she wants. Sometimes I just wonder if that will happen one day," Gadsby said. 

Comedy came to Gadsby during a time when she was struggling. 

"I was drifting. Yeah, I was, yeah, not doing well in life when I found comedy," she said. 

Gadsby was diagnosed with autism in 2017, which she talked about in her second comedy special, "Douglas." 

"Honestly, the day I was formally diagnosed with autism was a very good day. Because it felt like I'd been handed the keys to the city of me. Because I was able to make sense of so many things that had only ever been confusing to me. Like why I could be so intelligent but struggle to leave any proof," Gadsby said. 

"I think when I'm performing, I'm trying to connect what's happening deep inside me and the mess and the chaos inside me. And I'm trying to join that with the chaos of the world and make something out of it," she said.  

Gadsby grew up in a small town in the Australian state of Tasmania, where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. Her then undiagnosed autism meant Gadsby struggled socially. She drifted between dead-end jobs until a friend persuaded her to enter a stand-up comedy contest in Melbourne—a contest she won.  

"To be apart from the group and to be rejected from the group, you're almost begging for it by standing up in front of a crowd. But I've lived my whole life apart. Like, it's where I sort of sit and in the normal flow of life, that's an excruciatingly lonely and isolating place to be, but this sort of reverse engineers-- a comfortable place. It's like, you know, okay, you've got me, I'm different," she said.