“You know what’s so crazy? I’m famous,” declares the inimitable comedian Leslie Jones in her new special, “Life Part 2.” Dressed in a dazzling “Heart Breaker” T-shirt, towel in hand (a necessity for those hot flashes), she poses the question with genuine bewilderment: “Why would they give fame to me? Why?” she asks. “I still go to 7-Eleven in my pajamas.”
Jones’s surprise is understandable. Despite performing stand-up for over three decades—a career ignited by winning a “Funniest Person on Campus” competition at Colorado State University—she didn’t achieve mainstream recognition until she was 47. That’s when she joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” initially as a writer before becoming a beloved performer. But don’t mistake her surprise for dissatisfaction; at 58, splitting her time between Los Angeles and New York, Jones insists she wasn’t ready for success in her younger years.
“I didn’t even know who the president was when I was in my 20s,” she quipped. “It’s like, all I wanted to know was, where’s the free tequila?”
Her apparent apathy wasn’t due to a lack of awareness, but rather a heavy burden of past trauma. Jones revealed she was sexually abused by a babysitter as a toddler. Her parents, Willie Jones Jr., an electronic engineer, and Sundra Diane Jones, a cable company employee who suffered a stroke at 38, faced their own struggles. Her younger brother, Rodney (known as Keith), was entangled in drug dealing. And at 19, a particularly brutal piece of advice from a then-emerging Jamie Foxx after a disastrous set at The World stung: “Go live your life and make some material — because right now you have none,” she recounts in her memoir, “Leslie F*cking Jones.”
Following Foxx’s blunt critique, Jones stepped away from comedy for six years. During this hiatus, she took on various roles: a justice of the peace, and working multiple positions at the same restaurant—bartender, hostess, waitress, and cook. She even worked at two Scientology-owned businesses in Glendale, California (though she isn’t a Scientologist herself). Perhaps most fulfilling was her time as a summer league basketball coach for 10- to 12-year-olds at the local Y.W.C.A. These kids were among the many who encouraged her to return to the stage. And this time, she had plenty of material.
Jones continued to hone her craft in L.A. comedy clubs like the Comedy Act Theater and Maverick’s, supporting herself with restaurant jobs, including a stint at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Around 2005, a determined Jones literally chased Chris Rock to his car, pleading for connections in the industry. While she remembers him saying she wasn’t ready, Rock lovingly disputes this account.
“Leslie is hilarious,” Rock stated in a phone interview. “She was always ready. The world wasn’t ready for Leslie Jones.”
He further elaborated, “Leslie writes these well-crafted jokes and makes it seem effortless when she’s performing. She’s really genuine, so you leave her shows with the sense that you got to really know her.”
However, it was around 2010 when Jones debuted a provocative joke she’d penned in 1997, known as “The Slave Joke.” It was an immediate hit, validating her risky comedic approach. Chris Rock, impressed, placed her at the top of his list of funniest Black women to recommend to industry figures, including Lorne Michaels.
He urged Michaels to audition Jones, who had no prior experience in sketch comedy or writing for it. Michaels took his advice, hiring her as a writer for “SNL” in 2014, and eventually bringing her into the cast. This required some negotiation; Michaels initially suggested she “go down to feature pay,” but Jones, per her contract, demanded compensation for both roles. Michaels agreed.
Joining “SNL” as its oldest cast member was initially intimidating for Jones. “I didn’t understand until I got there that being 47 was ‘older people,’” she recalled, laughing about working alongside Kenan Thompson, who was 11 years her junior. “I was not the grown-up in the room. I never was. Kenan was the grown-up in the room. The only thing that I did was show them that at my age, you’re not old.”
“Leslie is a force of nature and truly like a sister to me,” Thompson confirmed in an email.
Her confrontational yet often self-deprecating stage presence became her signature. She skillfully skewered the behavior of problematic men while owning her own occasional missteps. These qualities perfectly suited her political commentary, which she sharpened on “Weekend Update” and has recently brought to “The Daily Show” as a regular contributor since March 2024.
With three Emmy nominations from her five seasons on “Saturday Night Live” (2014-2019), Jones now boasts a third comedy special, film roles (like “Coming 2 America” and the female-led “Ghostbusters” reboot), recurring TV appearances, and a history of hosting award and game shows. Her best-selling 2023 memoir openly discusses her challenging path to stardom, alongside experiences with racism, rejection, and profound loss. Through sheer determination, she has become a household name.
“My dream was to be like tourists come up to me and go, ‘Leslie, picture, please!’” she shared. “If you want to be a really good artist, you’re supposed to play to the masses.”
“Become Undeniable”
Among the transformative experiences that gave Jones courage and focus were the deaths of her parents, just six months apart, from heart-related illnesses. However, it was the loss of her younger brother in November 2009 that truly devastated her, prompting deep introspection. She realized her stand-up lacked a true foundation, focusing only on quick laughs.
Jones worried her “smart jokes were too smart” for her audience, originally written for fellow comics like her idols Whoopi Goldberg or Marsha Warfield, or saved for “when I got really funny.”
An existential crisis gripped her.
“I said at the time, the worst thing to me is not even death; it’s losing someone, you know,” she recounted. She remembered her late father, who desperately wanted to see his daughter succeed, telling her she had to “become undeniable.” Jones recalled, “I pulled out the jokes that I’d been saying, ‘Hey, am I smart enough to do this?’”
One such piece was “The Slave Joke,” conceived in 1997 in a fit of anger while eating cold fried rice after a terrible day. The joke depicts Jones—a six-foot-tall former college basketball player—imagining herself as a highly desirable enslaved woman in the Antebellum South.
“I was pissed off when I wrote it because I was like, the choices I have in men is disgusting,” Jones explained. “And I’m glad I waited because when it was time for me to pull it out, I was ready to do it. I was doing everything I could to hurt myself or get myself in trouble, or get where somebody wanted to fight me — in that mode of ‘somebody pinch me. Is my brother dead for real?’”
Initially, Jones recalled, “People came after me. They told me I was praising slavery,” which deeply unsettled her. She countered, “You’re not really listening.”
She eventually realized that the controversy was one of the joke’s greatest strengths: “I was doing comedy that’s making people talk in their living rooms.” Jones’s subversion of power dynamics, where her persona benefits from subjugation, is a hallmark of her comedy. Though, she admitted with a cackle, “Ultimately, it’s about getting a guy.”
If They’re Laughing, They’re Listening
In “Life Part 2,” Jones bravely re-enters controversial territory. In the special, she envisions her ideal funeral and critiques straight men for their poor physical and mental hygiene (Jones is a strong proponent of therapy), even venturing into MeToo humor that skirts a fine line.
Jones faced significant online racist and sexist abuse after the 2016 all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot. Despite the distress, she maintains, “I still can’t hate nobody, because when people come at me, I just feel sorry for them. To me, the fact that racism still exists is just maddening, because at this point, racism is being uneducated.”
Jones’s insights come from deeply personal experiences. Growing up as an Army brat at Fort Bragg, she witnessed how parents instilled racism in their children. She recounted a painful conversation with her mother after discovering white parents used racist slurs against her. This revelation profoundly impacted Jones, who knew her father, having grown up in the Jim Crow South, had endured racist violence and developed a hatred for white people—a sentiment she refused to adopt.
She reasoned that if racism could be taught, it could also be unlearned, and her comedy could be a tool for this. When people are laughing, she believes, they are listening.
Just recently in Manhattan, outside the Village Underground—a spot where Jones loves to test new material—a young woman approached her for a selfie. Soon, a diverse crowd, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers, recognized the comedian and lined up for their own photos. It was a dream realized.
“You know, I have a lot of MAGA people that are my fans because I speak their language,” Jones proudly stated. “My demographic is like, from 18 to 74. I have humor for everyone — I, at least, try to. When I’m writing my jokes, I write them like a human woman, because if it makes me laugh, it’s gonna make everybody laugh. I want to make everybody laugh.”