Janet Roth is a Ukrainian-American stand-up comedian, actor, and podcast host known for her sharp, highly analytical take on life — delivered with a healthy dose of international chaos.
Born in Ukraine to a Ukrainian-Armenian family and raised between cultures, Janet spent part of her teenage years in Germany before immigrating to the U.S. Along the way, she picked up multiple languages, a collection of accents, and enough cross-cultural observations to fuel a comedy career.
Janet has also been part of Netflix Is a Joke in 2024 and 2026, bringing her unapologetically blunt perspective to one of comedy’s biggest stages. She has performed alongside Tiffany Haddish, Craig Robinson, Tom Arnold, TJ Miller, Craig Conant, Jeff Dye, and many more. Her special Extremely Analytical (2021) is available on Amazon Prime.
Offstage, Janet co-hosts the podcast Are We Even American, where she dives into the absurdities of staying young, dating, relationships, and surviving life in Los Angeles — because apparently getting older, dating in LA, and figuring out America all require a podcast.
Fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, and German, Janet frequently incorporates accents, cultural observations, and her immigrant perspective into her comedy.
She also performs as her alter ego Valentina Brainova — a blunt, post-Soviet truth-teller created as Janet’s comedic response to Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. Think Soviet Karen meets cultural commentator meets unsolicited life coach: an eccentric former Playboy Bunny who applies very old-world logic to very modern problems.
https://womensinsider.com/finding-valentina-how-a-fictional-soviet-woman-gave-me-my-voice-back/
