5 Puerto Rican Comedians You Need to Know About Right Now

Sure, the holidays can be a lot of fun, but with last-minute shopping, family reunions, and travel, you might be in serious need of a good, stress-busting laugh! Here’s your Rx for comedy. 

These ROTFL comedians bring the risas to the season with their 100% Boricua inspired comedy. Check them out!

LeJuan James

The 32-year-old influencer rose to fame on social media for his hilarious true-to-life sketches of immigrant Latino parents (you may have also caught him in Camila Cabello’s video of her hit song “Havana,” where he played her loving mamá… in full beard!). 

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the US, the half-Boricua half-Dominican James quickly noticed that his family’s rules and traditions didn’t always match up with his friends’. That is the unique mix of mofongo with patacón pisao that fuels his laugh-out-loud comedy. And what better example is there than his take on Latino parents’ obsession with vivaporrú? (That’s Vicks’ Vapor Rub for everyone else).

WATCH HERE.

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Gina Brillon

Gina Brillon took off like a cohete after appearing on “America’s Got Talent,” but it was her comedy special on Amazon Prime titled “Gina Brillon: The Floor Is Lava,” that put her star on the map. 

Born and raised in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican descent, her comedy is already iconic. Although you may have only recently discovered her, the actress, writer, and mom has been a standup comic since she was 17 years old. Her special “Easily Offended” was one of the top shows from the “Entre Nos” franchise on HBO Latino, and streams on all HBO Digital Platforms. 

WATCH HERE.

Alexia Del Valle

With over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, the Puerto Rican funny girl from New Jersey didn’t see success until she realized that the videos that really resonated with people were the ones where she let her real personality shine through in all its Latina glory. 

The first post that went viral was her hilarious “Latina Mom in Stranger Things” video, which so far has garnered over 3 million views. Ever since then, staying true to her Puerto Rican identity has been the key to her success. 

WATCH HERE.

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Eli Castro

Before following his dream to become a standup comedian, Castro worked as a prosecutor and ran his own law firm, working as a criminal defense attorney. Want to top that? He also holds a master’s degree in communications, along with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

But his passion is comedy, using language and culture to create humor that cuts across all barriers whether of age, sex or nationality. His style, the brainy Boricua says, “reflects on society as it relates to who I am. We’re all minorities in one way or another.” Castro’s shows have been featured on ABC’s The View; Telemundo’s Un Nuevo Día, and the Univision network, among others. 

WATCH HERE.

Ricky Velez

A lifelong New Yorker, the Puerto Rican-Irish funny man uses his acerbic wit to contrast his early life in a working-class neighborhood in Queens with the privileges he now enjoys as a rising star on the national stand-up circuit.

“I’ve been on both sides of everything my entire life,” says Velez, 32. “I just like to go to the line, and make people understand why it’s fun to dance on it.”

His HBO special “Here’s Everything” was the creative breakout he needed, and the place where he lampoons politics and parenthood with irreverence and the hope that “people [realize they] need to stop taking themselves so seriously.” 

WATCH HERE.