Pop Goes The News — Actress and comedian Caroline Rhea has mixed feelings about being in Montreal, the city where she was born and raised.

“I don’t have a reason to come to Montreal,” she says. “My mom died in 2015 so I haven’t really been here.”

Earlier this month, on what would have been her mother’s 84th birthday, Rhea shared a photo of her mom and a touching message on Instagram. “Missing is not a biggest enough word to describe her absence,” she wrote.

Rhea is back in her hometown to perform at the closing night gala of the Just For Laughs festival — or, as she puts it, “to make fun of the city.”

She admits it feels good to be here. “It was nice to come back and not have bad feelings,” says Rhea. “I walked around Westmount and picked up my good mommy vibes.”

Rhea grew up in the affluent neighbourhood as the daughter of doctors Margery and David Rhea and moved to the U.S. in the late ‘80s.

Her long list of credits includes a run as Aunt Hilda on the comedy series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and her own syndicated daytime talk show in 2002-03.

Rhea hopes Montrealers can laugh at themselves.

“I’m going to make fun of the fact that they had an electric car race after the Grand Prix, which I would call the Grand Prius,” she jokes. “How do you have an electric car race? Rev your engines! How do you know? I can’t hear anything. Did you start?”

Rhea stars in the Winnipeg-shot film A Very Sordid Wedding, which opens in L.A. in August, and this fall she’ll be back on television five days a week as a panelist on the new syndicated game show Funny You Should Ask.