Nikki Justice and her boyfriend, Andrew Hamilton, are turning their dark pasts into a bright future in comedy

She’s the ex-wife of a bikie and a one-time stripper. He ran a $30,000-a-week drug ring that landed him in jail. Now, they’re playing their dark pasts for laughs at the Fringe.

Nikki Justice and Andrew Hamilton say their “Underbelly-style” pasts and shared love of comedy have brought them together. Picture: Dean Martin

Her world was a real-life Underbelly – daughter of a drug dealer, married to a Coffin Cheater bikie and working as a stripper.

He made $30,000 a week selling illegal psychedelic drugs – until his 16-year criminal enterprise landed him in NSW’s notorious Long Bay jail.

Today, Nikki Justice and her boyfriend, Andrew Hamilton, are turning their dark pasts into a bright future in comedy and are both appearing in separate shows in the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

“It was like Underbelly because of the crime, the drama, the love and loss – but there’s no murders in my story,” says Justice, who shares custody of her three children aged five, eight and 14 with her bikie ex-husband, Lee.

“It’s quite common in comedy, people laugh at their trauma ... if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.”

Nikki Justice and Andrew Hamilton are appearing in this year’s Adelaide Fringe Festival. Picture: Dean Martin

The 39-year-old – “27 in stripper years” – draws on her “unconventional origin story” as the daughter of a churchgoing drug dealer father who joined the circus with his young family when she was just a teenager.

She worked as a stripper when she was younger and again after becoming a single mum at the beginning of Covid.

“I was the Raygun of stripping,” laughs Justice, who “hung up my stripper heels a few years ago”.

“I wasn’t a very good dancer ... but luckily men don’t actually care about your dance moves.

“I have no regrets. I got paid a couple of grand a night and only worked every second weekend.”

Justice also pokes fun at being the wife of a bikie, who she met while she was stripping at a Coffin Cheater clubhouse and was married to for 10 years.

“There’s good eggs and bad eggs in every group,” says Justice, who won best WA comedy act at last month’s Perth Fringe Festival.

“But there’s obviously still an element of being outside the law. Definitely over the years I’ve seen some fights and some scary things but for the most part it’s more like an unconventional family.”

Justice has been dating Hamilton for about 18 months. His comedy debut was at an open mic in Sydney just days after being released from jail, where he spent four months on remand.

From there, he took his comedy show – Jokes About The Time I Went to Prison – to the 2023 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where he was nominated for best newcomer.

He is now preparing for his first overseas tour to New Zealand, the US and the UK.

“I have only just been allowed out of the country,” says Hamilton, who was released from his intensive corrections order in December.

“Luckily my community corrections officer is a big supporter of my comedy. I have criminal lawyers, prison officers, cops and crims come to my show – I’m waiting for the time they recognise each other.”

Hamilton’s illicit career started with selling magic mushrooms to mates. He eventually became the “mushroom king of Sydney” with a $30,000-a-week operation that also peddled cocaine, ketamine, LSD and MDMA and fuelled his $7000-a-week cocaine habit.

“I’d go out to dinner and drop $10,000,” he says. “I had $40,000 worth of Air Jordans sneakers. I could make $30,000 a week and spend $40,000, I was not very clever.”

It all came to an abrupt halt in June 2021, when police received a tip he was a “massive drug dealer – and that was a problem because I was”.

“The organised crime squad smashed through the door with a battering ram and balaclavas and shields,” Hamilton says.

“I ran upstairs and started flushing drugs down the toilet.”

Hamilton says he pleaded “extremely guilty” to supplying drugs and spent four months on remand in Parklea and Long Bay prisons.

“When I went to court (for sentencing), the judge liked that I was rehabilitating myself through stand-up comedy, he hadn’t heard that before,” says the 38-year-old, who was given a two-year, six-month intensive corrections order that allowed him to serve his time at home.

Hamilton, who went to exclusive St Ignatius’ College Riverview, lives in Sydney with his parents. Justice is in Perth with her young children. They say comedy – and its circuit of festivals – makes their long-distance relationship work.

Hamilton brought his new show, This’ll Be Good, to the Adelaide Fringe last week. Justice’s 1 and a Half Weddings And A Funeral is at Little Attention Seeker in the city until Sunday. She has a second show, Bad Mums, with nightly special guests.

“We’ve both got Underbelly-style stories to tell,” says Justice. “It’s probably why we hit it off.”

Originally published as Nikki Justice and her boyfriend, Andrew Hamilton, are turning their dark pasts into a bright future in comedy