Chonda Pierce

Background and Early Life

Chonda Pierce was born Chonda Courtney and was raised in South Carolina. She is a Christian comedian who has come to be known as The Queen of Clean. She began in comedy due to a six-year stint at the Park of Nashville in Tennessee called Opryland USA. She majored in Theater at Austin Peay State University. When she went to pay the college bills, she did not know how to dance and decided to memorize the jokes of Grinders Switch while she also had to impersonate Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl. After a troubled childhood, she said that playing and hearing the audience laughing was the best medicine she could ask for.

Chonda Pierce is a singer, television host, author, and Christian. She is known as "Chonda" or "The Queen of Clean". Her father was a preacher and suffered from depression, and she had to live a troubled life as her mother tried to keep the family together. Growing up, she was seen as a preacher's daughter, conversing with the hellfire preaching and wooden pews, which led to her becoming a well-known Christian. She was born with three siblings: Michael, Charlotta, and Cheralyn. Charlotta died in a head-on collision in 1976, and Cheralyn died of leukemia in 1978. Michael later left to get married. Their mother, Virginia, passed away in 2012. While in college, she began to perform comedy to pay her school fees. To establish herself as a comedian, she recorded "Second Row, Piano Side". She has released many albums, with her tenth and latest being "I'm a Big Deal".

Career

Chonda Pierce has appeared on many stages, including the Grand Ole Opry in Tennessee. She has written numerous books and is a highly sought-after Christian comedian. She has five gold-certified comedy albums and three platinum albums to her name. Pierce's comedy calendar continues up to the present day, and some of her comedy segments can be heard on Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio's Laugh. She is a member of the Christian Comedy Association, but outside of comedy, she is the spokesperson for World Vision and works for various Christian organizations. She has made appearances in many homecoming recordings of the Gaithers. She wrote about her struggles with depression when she was younger in the book Laughing in the Dark: A Comedian's Journey Through Depression.

Personal Life

She was previously married to David, but she is now single due to David's death during emergency brain surgery. After more than three decades of marriage, her husband passed away. Chonda Pierce is the mother of two children: Chera Pierce Meredith and David Zachary Pierce. Her daughter was given the names of her deceased sisters. They were a family of four, consisting of her husband and two children.

David W. Pierce and Chonda initially met as sophomores at Cheatham County High School in Ashland City, Tennessee. David was a handsome young man who wrestled for the state championship and played the guitar. Though they began as acquaintances, their relationship developed into a full-fledged romance over time. At the time, David was caring for his divorced father, an alcoholic from Ashland City.

Chonda and David married in Ashland City in 1984, shortly after graduating from college. Chonda decided to pursue a career as a religious comedian. David struggled with alcoholism, a battle rooted in his own father's addiction and compounded by the strain of their daughter Chera's later estrangement from the family, and Chonda Pierce's life became even more complicated.

Chonda Pierce can be found on Twitter as @chondapierce.