Leslie Jones says she needed to get her 'ass whooped' to become the comic she is today

Q53:59Leslie Jones

Leslie Jones always knew she would be a star, but it wasn't until she was 47 that she got her big break as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.

Along her journey to becoming a household name, the comedian had to deal with sexism, racism and people thinking her success was a fluke. Even some of her own family members doubted she'd make it.

And although Jones eventually proved them all wrong, when she first started doing stand-up in college, she bombed — and part of her thinks that experiencing failure was necessary for her to become who she is today.

"[It was] so embarrassing and very hurtful," Jones tells Q's Tom Power about her first time bombing. "It's like getting an ass whooping, but taking the ass whooping — I can't explain that any other way…. After every bomb, I would always be like, 'OK, I didn't do it right that time, but I'm going to do it again.' It was always more scary for me not to do it than to do it."

Jones's confidence is what helped her build her comedy career, but she admits that she was maybe a bit overconfident in her youth.

"I learned the lesson that you just can't walk up on stage and say you're going to be funny," she says. "I literally thought I was about to be the next Eddie Murphy — that's exactly what I said to the school paper when they interviewed me. I was like, 'I'm the next Eddie Murphy….'

"That was the childish cockiness of myself. There was a cockiness there, there was an element of unknown that I didn't know about. I was too f–king cocky. Yes, of course, it's great that's how I found my way, but it was appropriate for me to get my ass whooped to become the comic that [I am]."

This is one of the stories Jones shares in her debut memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones. The reason she gives for writing the memoir is refreshingly honest ("Well, agents," she tells Power), but at 56 years old, the comedian was just ready to share her secrets. 

"When you're younger, you just have this pact with yourself, like, 'I'm going to keep all my secrets,'" says Jones. "But when you start getting older … the secrets become not as secret, if that makes any sense. The secrets actually make you who you are….

"It's part of your life, it's what you've been through. So you shouldn't be ashamed of growth…. Of course, you're not going to tell everything about yourself. But, you know, there's things that I was holding that I was like, 'Hey, you don't need to — you're a grown ass woman. Can't nobody do nothing to you. You can't get your ass whooped by nobody from your secrets.'"

Jones will be performing at Just For Laughs in Toronto on Sept. 23.

The full interview with Leslie Jones is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also talks about her teenage years, Saturday Night Live and the advice Jamie Foxx gave her that changed her life. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Leslie Jones produced by Glory Omotayo.