The former “Saturday Night Live” star loudly and hilariously skewered the president for downplaying the slave trade.
Tag: leslie jones
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Dan Aykroyd Defends ‘Ghostbusters’ All-Female Reboot Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig
Dan Aykroyd, one of the original Ghostbusters, is defending 2016’s all-female reboot of Ghostbusters, which was met with racist and sexist criticism from online trolls following its debut.
The actor and screenwriter, who starred as Dr. Ray Stantz in the 1984 movie as well as penned the script, opened up in a recent interview with People about his appreciation for the entire franchise, including the Paul Feig-directed installment starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
“I liked the movie Paul Feig made with those spectacular women,” Aykroyd said. “I was mad at them at the time because I was supposed to be a producer on there and I didn’t do my job and I didn’t argue about costs. And it cost perhaps more than it should, and they all do. All these movies do.”
“But boy, I liked that film,” the Saturday Night Live alum continued. “I thought that the villain at the end was great. I loved so much of it. And of course, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig, you’re never going to do better than that. So I go on the record as saying I’m so proud to have been able to license that movie and have a hand and have a part in it, and I’m fully supportive of it, and I don’t besmirch it at all. I think it works really great amongst all the ones that have been made.”
The cast of the 2016 reboot have previously spoken out about the hateful comments they received, including McCarthy and Jones. The latter recalled the “online abuse” in her memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones, last year, saying she “got taken through the ringer.”
“Why are people being so evil to each other? How can you sit and type ‘I want to kill you.’ Who does that?” Jones added in her memoir. “Sad keyboard warriors living in their mother’s basements hated the fact that this hallowed work of perfect art now featured — gasp! horror! — women in the lead roles. Worst of all, of course, was that one of the lead characters was a Black woman. For some men this was the final straw.”
At the time, the Coming 2 America star also slammed Jason Reitman, the director of 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, for saying he was “not making the Juno of Ghostbusters movies” and was “trying to go back to original technique and hand the movie back to the fans.”
Though Reitman later clarified that his comments “came out wrong,” Jones wrote in her memoir that “the damage was done.”
Carly Thomas
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Chris Rock Went to Counseling After Will Smith Oscars Slap, Says Leslie Jones
More than 18 months after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, celebrities are still speaking about the fallout. Following Sean Penn’s claim that the incident “never would have happened” had actor turned Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy been present for the Oscars telecast, Leslie Jones has offered some insight about how Rock dealt with the slap’s aftermath.
“That shit was humiliating. It really affected him,” Jones put it plainly in a recent People interview. “People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters,” she continued, referencing Rock’s children Lola, 21, and Zahra, 19.
Rock himself has spoken about the slap, which occurred after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith. “I’m not a victim,” Rock said in his Netflix comedy special Selective Outrage. “You will never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying, saying, ‘I couldn’t believe it. I love Men in Black.’” Jones applauded Rock, who wrote the foreword to her new memoir, for speaking about the altercation onstage. “Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That’s what comedians do,” Jones said. “Instead of us going crazy we fucking go talk about it on the fucking stage. Thank God we’ve got the stage.”
Jones then expressed her own reaction to the slap, which resulted in Smith’s resignation from the Academy and the actor being banned from attending the ceremony for the next decade. “It made me so infuriated. You don’t know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there [to the 2022 Oscars],” Jones said. “I was so fucking mad on so many levels. For a long ass time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a fucking joke. I know Will, too…I was like, you couldn’t handle that shit afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching.”
She later told Rock, “I was like, ‘Chris, when he got up, why didn’t you run?’ I would’ve been running around that stage like, ‘Will, calm down. Jada, call your man!’” Jones maintained that Smith “could have still fixed it” when he returned to the podium to accept the best actor award for King Richard. According to Jones, Smith should have said, “‘I shouldn’t have did that. Bring Chris out. I can not accept the Oscar right now because that was fucking wrong.’”
Rock hasn’t expressly shared his family’s reaction to the slap, but Rose Rock, Chris’s mother, has offered her blunt reaction: “When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us,” she said shortly after the incident, adding, “he really slapped me. Because when you hurt my child, you hurt me.” In his July 2022 apology video, Smith directly apologized to Rock’s mother and Rock’s brother, Tony Rock, who called the slap “foul” in a series of tweets. “We had a great relationship,” Smith says about Tony. “Tony Rock was my man. And this is probably irreparable.” A source told People at the time that Chris Rock was “assessing” the incident, but that “the stress of the slap and the aftermath has not taken over his life. Quite the opposite.”
Savannah Walsh
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‘The Daily Show’ Guest Host Leslie Jones Has 1 Scathing Question For George Santos
“Do you know how much you have to lie to be known as ‘the lying congressman?’” Jones asked.
“He didn’t just steal from a service dog. He didn’t just steal from a dying service dog. He stole from a disabled homeless veteran’s dying service dog!” Jones said in disbelief.
Santos, she said, is both “evil and stupid.”
“You’re gonna mess with somebody’s dog? Have you not heard of John Wick?” Jones asked. “Your ass is in trouble.”
See more in her Wednesday night monologue:
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Leslie Jones promises to be herself hosting ‘The Daily Show’
NEW YORK (AP) — Comedian Leslie Jones will be taking a temporary whirl as host of “The Daily Show” this week, and she says viewers can expect her trademark — some blunt, edgy humor.
“I’m not Jon Stewart. I’m not Trevor Noah, I’m Leslie Jones. So I’ll be bringing that vulnerable honesty,” the “Saturday Night Live” alum joked in an interview on the eve of her new gig.
Jones’ stand-in as host on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on the Comedy Central topical show yields to four more upcoming weekly gigs by comedians: Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman.
Jones’ guest on Tuesday will be Morris Chestnut, starring in “The Best Man: The Final Chapters.” In a video promoting her guest host gig, correspondent Roy Wood Jr. is seen helping her practice identifying prominent people like Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Supreme Court Clarence Thomas.
While this week marks the first time Jones has appeared on “The Daily Show,” she’s no stranger to MC-ing, having guest-hosted “The Ellen Show” and taking charge of ABC’s game show revival “Supermarket Sweep.”
“No assignment to me is ever different. It’s always them asking for me. Pretty much what I come to deliver is me. So it’s not really too much different than when I used to do — updates at ‘SNL’ or doing standup, you know?” she said. “It’s all talking.”
Over the years, “The Daily Show” — first hosted by Craig Kilborn, then Jon Stewart and more recently Trevor Noah — has skewered the left and right by looking at the day’s headlines with a jaundiced view. Noah stepped down late last year, and no permanent successor has yet been named.
On “SNL,” three-time Emmy Award nominee Jones did impressions of Whoopi Goldberg, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, Omarosa Manigault Newman and, most memorably, Donald Trump.
During her run from 2014 to 2019, she routinely hit on Colin Jost while appearing on his “Weekend Update” desk, calling him things like a “little salty oyster cracker,” and showing off her complicated and fictional relationship with fellow cast member Kyle Mooney.
Her viral tweets earned her an NBC correspondent job at the 2016 and 2018 Olympics. She hosted the BET Awards in 2017 and starred in the 2016 “Ghostbusters” remake.
Jones said she has been keeping up with daily events and personalities to ensure “The Daily Show” is still topical under her watch, but she’s also got stuff planned.
“We got already a lot of ideas wrapped up and what we want to do and what we want the show to look like,” she said. “Of course that changes with daily events. If something big happened, of course, we would have to change it for that. But, yeah, we got a lot of stuff that we already want to do.”
Asked if she’d be interested in inheriting the host’s chair on a permanent basis, Jones was non-committal. “I don’t really want to answer that,” she said.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Chelsea Handler, Leslie Jones and John Leguizamo among guest hosts to step in for Trevor Noah on ‘The Daily Show’ | CNN
CNN
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The end of an era is fast approaching at Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” and the network has announced at least the first phase of plans for what’s to come next.
Following longtime host Trevor Noah’s imminent departure, the network shared this week that comedy legends including Al Franken, Chelsea Handler, D. L. Hughley, Leslie Jones, John Leguizamo, Hasan Minhaj, Kal Penn, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes and Marlon Wayans will fill in as host of the late-night show starting Tuesday, January 17th, as part of its “next chapter”.
Comedy Central added that “Daily Show” correspondents and contributors are also “set to host with additional details to be announced.”
“As we enter Trevor’s final week, we want to thank him for his many contributions,” said Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Paramount Media Networks, according to the network statement.
Trevor redefined the show, as did Jon Stewart before him, and as we look to the future, we are excited to reimagine it yet again with the help of this incredible list of talent and correspondents along with the immensely talented ‘Daily Show’ team.”
Noah’s final show is set to air this Thursday. The network has yet to announced whether guest hosts will revolve indefinitely or if a permanent, individual host will be named soon.
“The Daily Show” airs weeknights at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central and is available the following morning on Paramount+.
