Nurse John never envisioned an on-stage career for himself, much less one in which he’d be selling hundreds of thousands of tickets in cities worldwide. And yet it’s something he’s built for himself in a short span of time, going from frontline nurse to viral TikTok creator to globally successful stand-up comic in just five years. The ascent was so impressive that I had to name Nurse John as one of the Comics Who Won 2025, in a piece you can read at the link below.

Born John Dela Cruz, Nurse John began posting on social media as a means of coping with the intense experience of nursing during the Covid pandemic, in what amounted to a brutal introduction to the field, post-grad. Amazingly, he says it was a “butt-dial-posted video” that sent him off on a journey he never could have expected.

While having :”a mental breakdown,” he stitched video of himself crying to a video of someone else asking, “Can you name me a profession that is undervalued, underappreciated and underpaid?”

Unexpectedly, this simple post resonated not only with the nursing community, but with people in all kinds of customer service jobs. The video’s viral breakout was jarring enough that Nurse John deleted TikTok for six months, before deciding to return and really give posting on social more regularly a go.

As his work as a creator took off, Nurse John took on reps in CAA and Logan Watkins, a rising manager from Select Management Group, with CAA encouraging him to explore extensions of the powerful brand he was building. Nurse John’s initial idea was to go on the road for a tour with I Beg Your Pardon, his popular podcast, in which he discusses nursing life and work-life balance in our overwhelming modern era. But then CAA encouraged him to try something different — getting on stage as a stand-up, despite the fact that he’d never once performed stand-up, or been on stage in any kind of professional capacity.

After that meeting in early 2024, Nurse John dipped his toe into the stand-up world with a five-minute set at the Brea Improv, a venue that’s become a home for him as he’s tested and built out his on-stage act. CAA was so convinced of Nurse John’s potential as a comedian, they booked him a global tour as a stand-up, despite the fact that he’d only get to perform a limited set of test shows in clubs before hitting theaters worldwide.

“The growth has just been explosive, exponential — unlike any other comic, I would say,” manager Watkins tells me on the Comedy Means Business podcast. “Because a lot of comics are in the comedy clubs for years before moving to theaters. And I mean, I think we did 15 shows and then we went on a full-blown theater tour. It’s insane.”

Joining Watkins for the sit-down with Deadline, Nuse John pulls back the curtain on his experience of his stratospheric rise, reflecting on the emotional impact of sudden viral visibility and the practical mechanics of turning internet attention into a sustainable live business. Along the way, the pair also touch on burnout, boundaries, team-building, international routing, and what it takes to protect both creative identity and longevity in a career that accelerated faster than anyone anticipated.

Check out the full conversation with Nurse John and Watkins — who just got her first full-on experience of the touring business alongside her client — by clicking above.