Vale Bella Green

Author, comedian and sex worker Bella Green has died, aged 38.

Green developed a stand-up and sketch comedy routine around her life as a sex worker called ‘Bella Green is Charging For It’, which she performed at fringe festivals in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, winning Best Comedy at Adelaide in 2020 and a nomination for Best Comedy at Melbourne in 2018. Green was awarded a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2019 and used the opportunity to write a collection of personal essays, which she developed into the memoir Happy Endings, published by Pan Macmillan in 2021.

Pan Macmillan publisher Cate Blake writes:

‘I first met Bella through her stand-up work and it was—like her prose proved to be—hilarious, insightful and subversive. She was a natural storyteller, a keen observer of humanity in all its flaws and glory, and gave of herself with low-key generosity. Once, when Bella and I were grabbing a beer at a Sydney pub, I mentioned to the bartender that it was a “work meeting” and he looked at me with deep skepticism—how could something so clearly fun be work? He was right; chatting to Bella, diving into her words and ideas, was a pleasure and a privilege. I’ll always remember these words at the heart of her memoir, Happy Endings: “I am loveable and desirable and f—kable, not in spite of my flaws but because of them … Authenticity, real authenticity, is what draws people to you … That’s what people truly respond to, not just an imitation of it.”’

Category: Obituaries