How much is Leslie Jones worth?
| Net Worth: | $6 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Comedian |
| Date of Birth: | September 7, 1967 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.83 m |
About Leslie Jones
In 1987, when Jones was still a student, a friend of hers encouraged her to compete in a competition to determine who the “Funniest Person on Campus” would be. Following her victory in the competition, Jones dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles. In order to make ends meet, she worked full-time jobs at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles and UPS in addition to performing stand-up comedy in nightclubs. She moved to New York City to develop her skills for two years, during which time she featured on BET’s ComicView before moving back to Los Angeles. Comedians Mother Love and Dave Chappelle were among those who pushed her to make the move.
Jones was born on September 7th, 1967 in the city of Memphis, in the state of Tennessee. She was the sister of Rodney Keith Jones, who was her younger brother (1971–2009). Due to the fact that her father served in the United States Army, the family moved quite a bit throughout her childhood.
Her family relocated to Los Angeles after her father was offered a position as an electronics engineer at KJLH, the radio station owned by Stevie Wonder. Jones completed her high school education at Lynwood, California, where she was also a member of the basketball team. Jones’s father encouraged her to participate in basketball due to the fact that she is over six feet tall.
Jones received a scholarship to play basketball at Chapman University. Jones worked as a disc DJ at the student radio station, KNAB, and entertained thoughts of playing professional basketball in other countries when she was first undecided of what she wanted to study in college. Jones followed her coach, Brian Berger, to Colorado State University in 1986 after Berger accepted the position of head coach at Colorado State University.
Jones considered pursuing a pre-law degree once she arrived at Colorado State, but she ended up changing her major many times before deciding to focus in communications. During her stay at Colorado State, Jones also spent some time studying accounting and computer science. Although she appeared on stage at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, the reviews of her performances there were not particularly positive.
After that, she went on tour and opened for Jamie Foxx, during which time the members of his audience jeered at her. Jones decided to take a break from performing because she lacked experience and did so for three years. Around the year 2010, out of the fear that she would only ever be recognized by African American communities, she started to withdraw from performances at so-called “black clubs” Chris Rock was in the audience when she performed one night, and he passed her name along to a number of “the biggest managers in comedy” all of whom “didn’t get it” Jones’s future employment at Saturday Night Live was ultimately facilitated by Rock’s assistance.
Jones made an appearance in Master P‘s film Repos in the year 2006. Jones was a guest performer on Katt Williams‘s It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’ tour in the year 2008. Jones has been hired by Netflix to star in a stand-up special scheduled for release in 2020.
Jones submitted her audition tape to Saturday Night Live during the month of December 2013, when the show was looking to recruit at least one African-American woman to its cast. Before being called to audition for the program, Jones had expressed his dissatisfaction with it by claiming that it was “not funny” particularly when it came to the performance of cast member Kenan Thompson.
Sasheer Zamata was brought on board as a featured player, while Jones and LaKendra Tookes were brought on as writers for the show. Jones made an appearance on the edition of Saturday Night Live that aired on May 3, 2014, presented by Andrew Garfield. During her appearance, Jones made comments about her current dating difficulties as well as her potential efficacy as a breeding slave. These jokes aroused controversy.
Jones made an appearance in the first and third episodes of the 40th season, which, respectively, were hosted by Chris Pratt and Bill Hader. Jones was elevated to the role of featured player on the cast on October 20, 2014, and she made her first appearance as a cast member on the episode that was hosted by Jim Carrey on October 25, 2014.
At the age of 47, she was the senior member of the cast and the oldest individual to ever join the show (surpassing Michael McKean and George Coe, who were 46 when they joined the show in 1994 and 1975, respectively). When Jones joined the cast of Saturday Night Live for the first time, it was the first time in the show’s history that there was more than one African-American woman; additionally, the show’s 40th season was the first time there were five African-American cast members at the same time, breaking the previous record of three. After that, Jones came back for Season 41, Season 42 (during which she was elevated to Repertory Status), Season 43, and Season 44.
Chris Rock’s directorial debut, Top Five, was released in 2014, and Tommy Lee Jones had an appearance in the film. Rock has stated that a sequel is in the works, telling Complex Magazine, “The sequel is in the works.” “There are some individuals who truly shine in Top Five. You should probably watch Leslie Jones for a little bit longer.” Jones made an appearance in the 2015 film Trainwreck, which was directed by Judd Apatow and co-written by Amy Schumer. Reportedly, Apatow and Schumer wrote a character particularly for Jones after witnessing her performance in Top Five.
Alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon, she portrayed Patty Tolan in the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters. The film also included Kristen Wiig. As a result of Jones’ work on Saturday Night Live, she was considered for a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in both 2017 and 2018. Jones decided not to come back for the 45th season, hence the 44th season was the last one she appeared in.
Jones was quite active on Twitter throughout the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, posting videos of her emotions and constantly live-tweeting events. The number of people interested in Jones’ analysis increased, which led to the publication of pieces such as “Watching Leslie Jones Watch The Olympics Is Better Than The Actual Olympics” in The Huffington Post.
One of Jones’ Twitter followers, television producer Mike Shoemaker, suggested to his friend Jim Bell, the executive producer of NBC’s Olympics coverage, that Jones should be added to NBC’s team of commentators covering the Games. Bell responded the next day by asking Jones to join NBC in Rio de Janeiro via Twitter. Jones is one of Jones’ Twitter followers. She was asked to cover swimming, track & field, gymnastics, and beach volleyball for NBC and she accepted the assignment. She travelled to Rio de Janeiro.
Both Jones and fellow comedian Adam DeVine were featured in an advertisement for Allstate Insurance in 2016 that was developed by Leo Burnett Worldwide. On June 25, 2017, Jones served as the host of the BET Awards. This was her first time hosting a show.
Since 2017, she has been a part of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her membership began in the year 2017. In 2018, Jones starred in two adverts for Amazon’s Echo Spot. Both of these advertisements were published online.
Jones continued to fulfill her responsibilities at the 2018 Winter Olympics, which were held in South Korea. She also provided live tweeting services during the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics, which were held in Tokyo, Japan.
The 2022 Winter Olympics were held in Beijing, China, and she tweeted live coverage of the event for the last time. She claims that the broadcaster NBC is putting pressure on her to quit live-tweeting, and she has published a message on Twitter declaring that these will be the final Olympics that she will live-tweet.
Summing-Up
Jones was a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2014 until 2019, and is the host of the game show Supermarket Sweep at the moment. Both the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal and the Aspen Comedy Festival have featured her as a performer in the past. Problem Child, her one-hour comedy show, debuted on Showtime in 2010, and ran for the entire hour. Jones played the role of Patty Tolan in the 2016 film Ghostbusters. Because to Jones’s work on Saturday Night Live, she was considered for a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in both 2017 and 2018.
