Drama Queens - Leslie Jones - part 1

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

From SNL to sold-out stand-up, Leslie Jones has built a career saying exactly what's on her mind. Find out Leslie's street-smart rule for dealing with other comedians and why she's got a thing for serial killers. Plus, Leslie and Sophia dream up a hilarious movie plot that'll be Elon Musk's worst nightmare.Leslie Jones hosts “Roast My Rental” on HGTV with episodes streaming the next day on HBO Max. And to learn more about her tour, follow Leslie on instagram or visit justleslie.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Hey, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress.

Welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. We have a guest. I have been dying to get for so low. long, a comedy legend, someone who makes me laugh so hard, someone undeniable. Leslie Jones is on the show today. Long before Blockbuster Films and sold out tours and Saturday Night Live, Leslie spent years in comedy clubs developing her stand-up voice and discovering how her one-of-one presence could light up a room.

Whether she is roasting politicians, live tweeting the Olympics, or she's show you. sharing her take on injustice, hypocrisy, and the absolute absurdity of these times, Leslie's built a career saying what most of us are thinking, but maybe a little scared to say out loud. And behind that famous persona is someone who's still figuring it out what it means to keep evolving and doing it with humor. Let's dive in with Leslie Jones. Hi. Hey, how you doing? Leslie Jones, I am fucking obsessed with you. I'm so happy you're here. like I that you are

you are so demure and then all of a sudden it's like let's eat at once I fucking love you I'm fucking I love you no you are like you are a get for me I'm so happy hi oh that's so sweet I like the curtains behind you

thank you they are from Amazon really Amazon I mean great but Jeff Bezos but horrible it's like you know it's not I'm like it's I'm not proud of it but I did it was many years ago that I bought None of us are. None of us are. Target and Amazon are the devil.

And we just keep dancing with that motherfucker, you know? They need three ghosts. That's what it is. I know it. I know it. You know. Maybe we should make that movie. Just like three sassy lady ghosts.

Who else we're going to get? That would be so dumb. We just go haunt the billionaires, be like, you, you fucking piece of shit. But how do you sleep at night? This is your future. This is your future, sir. Right at the end of the bed. You think you're going to sleep tonight?

You're never going to sleep again. I think again, motherfucker. You heard it here first, folks. We're making a movie coming in 2028. Man, that's funny. Oh, my God. You are funny. You are brilliant.

I am so happy you're here today. Like, there are some days where I'm just like, is there, what are we doing? what are we doing? Is there a point to this? Should I keep screaming into the void? And then I'm like, yeah, Leslie's, Leslie's yelling too. Yeah. But like, we make it funny when we can. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're yelling, but is anyone really listening? I don't know anymore. I don't know. I mean, Congress isn't, but that's for, you know, November. They were never listening. I mean, they were never listening. I think that we are,

I think people are starting to come up out of this, whatever this was. this, what they call it, phase. I don't know what phase it was. I was going to say delusion, but we can say phase. I think COVID really affected us in a mental way. And for us not to recognize it is what's fucking us up right now. And like when we came out of COVID, it should have been like official, hey, we're coming out of COVID.

Everybody needs to get some mental work. Everybody needs to, you know, we need to talk. There should have been forums for people to go to, to talk about it, to get that shit out. Like a full system reset. Yeah, it's not normal for us to have locked up for two years. It's not normal. That's not a normal thing that happened to us. And people need to understand that.

And I really think, and I hate to say this, a lot of people can't be alone with themselves. Yeah. And that is something that we all learn as humans, right? Like we all learn how to actually spend time without. ourselves. And some people are not on that same level. And I really think it drove a lot of people crazy. I really believe that it affected a lot of people mentally. And it's just been a skew ever since. Like it's like been an upside down world. Because the things that Trump is doing, it don't even make sense to me in the... I mean, it's crazy. It's like we're watching a bad

80s disaster movie. Yes. Right? Like a amazing. for TV movie. He's doing everything that we would think is crazy. He's doing literally everything. And it's like, every day. And we know, and this is what I tell everybody, you know how this movie's going to end, right?

Hello? You can't keep doing bad and expect good to happen. No. It's going to collapse like a motherfucker. Well, and it just doesn't even make any sense. Like, we're legalizing more forever, chemicals in the air and the water? Like, we live here.

Like, we live here. And by the way, I think about this, you know, we're having this conversation in the week that we just got the world's first trillionaire. Ketamine cowboy now has a trillion dollars to spend. I can't even fathom it. And this man is obsessed with going to Mars, right? And I'm like, bro, tell me you've never done a day of work in a carcoral system anywhere. Because I don't care if you're going to build your prison to look like the four seasons. You're talking about building a prison.

Like, you can't go outside on Mars. You will never have fresh air. You will never feel the sun on your face. You will never hear the wind in the trees. And even if you engineer all of that in your weird, bougie prison bubble, it will be fake. And your humanity will know it and you will go crazier than you already are. And, sir, you're already crazy. You're hallucinating at the White House on camera.

All I could think of was total recall. Oh, my God, it is. I mean, that's all I could think about. You're right. That's the one where they went to Mars, right? I think so. I forgot what you was where Honest Swaysonnaker went to Mars. Yes.

Like what my thing is is that those people don't live in an actual real world. They have their own bubble and they don't understand that they're in their own bubble. They don't have no respect for humanity because, and I hate to say this, but a lot of rich white motherfuckers have this entitlement of like, what's going to happen to me because I'll sue you. Mm-hmm. Nothing's going to happen to me. I have enough money to where nothing's going to happen to me.

Well, it's like them all building these bunkers. Well, my thing is, why didn't you learn from Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs was so rich and he couldn't save himself from dying. Yeah. You know what I'm, and that's what another thing, too, like when you look at these movies and you look at these shows, why, why is everybody trying to live? forever. And why? I don't want that. No one. You should not want that. Nobody wants that. It's not even like everybody wants to do anything that's against nature or against the way that things are,

if that makes any sense. Like, you're supposed to grow old. You're supposed to pass it on. It's supposed to be a community, but everybody wants to fight against that. And I don't, well, not everybody. I would say really strongly the Republicans and the, People that are like that, they really don't believe in community. They don't believe in helping each other. They believe in, hey, the money that I make should go to you. I mean, everybody has, everybody knows that, yes, the money that I make should come to me, but there should be a thing where we help the community that we live in.

That's why we pay taxes so the streets can get fixed. And, you know, do you get what I'm saying? I don't understand why they're fighting against so hard. I don't either. And people who think they should just be able to hoard everything. I've started saying a new thing where I'm like, oh, okay, so you don't believe in, quote, social services. Okay. What I want you to do is go buy yourself some land with your money, trench it, find your own water, create your own sewage system, pave your own roads, make your own concrete. Do everything by yourself. do everything by yourself

and then they're like well I didn't mean that and I'm like what do you think a stoplight is what do you think a road is what do you think the water that comes out of your sink is well I'm just like why do they think that it's not going to affect them

like whatever happens is just going to jump over them and then they have children so I'll be like do you not care with your child I don't understand the lack of empathy that's the lack of

either and okay and this is my theory, I'm starting to really believe that they're aliens. That's the only, that's the only explanation. Because the only way you could pillage a planet like this is, if you work from here, if you're using it for something else. The only way that you could be so lack of empathy is that you're not human. That's the only thing. That's the second movie we should make.

And then when you look at them, don't they look like? aliens? Elon must look like the dude that has a person suit on him. Have you seen Peter Till? That aliens fighting. He's fighting to get out that face. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Did you see the girl? last week who she was on IVIs she came up on my Instagram we probably have the same FYP considering our opinions but somebody goes what's your hot take on America and she goes America's just three billioners

in a trench coat I was like touchea tusha that is so true because it is it's very men and black in here right now very yucky when it comes to when it comes to women and children, I just, I just don't understand. Okay, everything feels weird because like, okay, the MAGA, they're always talking about how everybody's pedophiles and all of that. But then it just, you know how they're saying is, thou protest too much? Y'all are pedophiles.

Y'all, everything that you're yelling, that's what you are. Yeah. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files more than Jesus is in the Bible. And I'm talking about even the mega people. They want to marry 12 and 13. This is the thing I want to know. I know it. What is men's fascination with children?

What is their fucking fast? I'm, I really, that's the thing I want to, you know, I used to, I don't know. My major was criminal justice,

and I wanted to find serial killers. Oh my God, I want to talk to you about this so bad. I wanted to be a serial killer finder. That's what I wanted to be called, too. I didn't want to be called nothing but serial killer finder. Like I wanted that on my fucking desk and on my door. SKF,

you wanted it on a business card. That's right. A serial killer finder because it was fascinating to me to figure out the brain and what makes it go to that level of evilness. Yes. And I'm really fascinated and wanted to know what what are you getting from fucking children? Yes. What is that? Is it is it some satanic shit?

or is it? I don't even understand. I'm really curious. No, it's crazy. It's so, it's everywhere. And to your point, when you really start to like zoom out and look at it and you go, oh, every accusation is a confession. That's what I'm saying. Like they said, they said the big lie was y'all stole the 2020 election. Everybody knows that's not true. They analyzed all the evidence. They looked at everything in the court. It's not true. But you get to 2024 and Elon's like, yeah, well, he would have lost without me and my space lasers and my Starlink. And I'm like, oh.

Understand why is no one, why are we? And this is what pisses me off. I'm being really honest. The Democrats know that shit too. And they're showing up to gun fights with a piece of fucking cake. It's pissing all the time. We show up to the knife fight with a pencil and they come with an oozy and we wonder why we're losing. No, no, they're showing up with.

Kate, baby. They're their kid. They got crazy. And let me tell you something. Like the older the older fucking Democrats need to sit down and let the more progressive and aggressive Democrats step forward and fight his fight

like they're fighting this fight. What Gavin Newsom was doing was absolutely right. He is not but Biff. He's Biff from back to the future. That's all that motherfucker is and we know how to affect them. Everything that they're saying, just like you said, we need to shout that shit out.

Every time y'all say some shit and accuse us, we know that you did that shit. So every complaint is a confession, your motherfucker. So, yeah, like, it doesn't, we're watching this happen in real time. And I think we're just stunned almost. Yeah. And then, too, there's a thing about people who don't go to the manager.

Like, for example, like, there's a lot of us who will call the manager over and be like, this was not good. I want my money back or either they'd make it over or whatever, right? But then there's people who go, this was nasty, I'm not coming back here. And they just don't say nothing. We got to start talking to the manager.

Yeah, we have to, we got to fix it. Because the issue I have, people who are like, well, yeah, with that part. But even people who are like, well, what's the point? I'm not voting.

I'm like, you know what? We got to do all of it. Because at the end of the day, saying, well, the ship's fucked up, I'm not going to participate. We're all on it. So we can't let it crash. Like we,

we have to do something. Well, this is what, this is when people say that, when people say that they're not working with all the information. What they need to understand is just think of, think of the United States as a whole, right?

Think of it as a whole, right? Only one third of us are voting. It's crazy. So, so the system that you think is working against us can work for us if we actually. use the system. Yeah, if we participate. You have to participate. Because because the third that's voting

is the motherfuckers who want the shit this way, right? So if everybody went out and even if two thirds of us started voting, this shit would be over. So different. He wouldn't have been able to cheat. And they're going to find out that he cheated. They're going to find out that he cheated because he has Elon Musk, this motherfucker's over. You're bragging about it. I'm gone. Like, it's so fucking obvious.

And when they find out, this is what I'm telling everybody, like, if the Democrats do get a chance to take over, if y'all don't send all these motherfuckers to jail, if you don't do something, we're not going to, it's the system's literally going to break down because they're going to be like, we don't want to go to fuck back to this checks and balance that you thought was in check. We need new checks. People are scared of new shit. But when they made this, the fucking declaration of independence, they had amendments. They met for it to change through the, the time of change. And they said so. Everybody's so scared to do something for that fits. Like when you're going to, just because a uniform is a uniform, if you're too fat for the uniform, we have to adjust its uniform. What the fuck is people doing? I know it.

I know it. And now a word from our sponsors. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Okay, I have a question. I got to zoom out because I feel like I wish we were in person over dinner. I wish we had a drink, but here we are. Like, you like me are an entertainer. I think a lot of people don't necessarily know what our education backgrounds are.

You know, a lot of people are surprised to find out I went to journalism school and studied political science. A lot of people might be surprised to find out that you went to study criminology. Like, how does that happen? You know, how... I become that to a comedian. Yeah, because, like, I know that, you know, I know you played basketball. Obviously, you went into comedy. But where did the criminology come from?

And was that something, like, from your childhood? because I love to ask people, like if you got to hang out with your eight-year-old self, would you see yourself in that child? But now I'm like, who was your eight-year-old child? I want to hang out with her too. Was she a mystery solver? Was she already a comedian? Like, how did we get to Leslie now from then?

Well, this is why I tell people. I am the perfect example of not knowing what I am, but I decided to go to college to figure it out. even if you don't stay in college, because I didn't, sometimes it really helps you figure stuff out. So, like the eight-year-old Leslie, it's okay, because I'm going forward. I want to go backwards first. Yeah, yeah, okay. So when I was in high school and playing basketball and stuff, the goal was just to get a scholarship so I can go to college. My dad wants me to go to college.

I'm going to go to college. But in my head, I'm thinking, you know, I'm just doing. doing what I'm supposed to be doing, right? I don't know anything. I don't know that I can have my own choices. I'm just doing what my parents tell me. So, you know, you get the scholarship. When my first year, seriously, I changed my major at least seven times. I wanted to be a computer science. And then micro-macro-economics said, no, you're not. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to be a lawyer. And then this bitch came into the class and said she won 25 cases every night. I'm absolutely not, I'm absolutely not going to be a lawyer bitch. And then I was like,

oh, okay, so then I'm going to be, I forgot what the, it was, it was some very, like, what is wrong with you? It was like, I can't, I think it was like painting or something. And I was like, yeah, because I was in the ceramics class, what's wrong with you? I did, and then I did, I had a communications class. And I went up and, and I did the speech. And I, I, I, I, I just made up some shit. I just came off the top of my head. And I did Whoopi Goldberg saying I put the sweatshirt on my head. And I went up and I was like, this is my fucking hair.

Oh, my God. Like, I did this whole thing. And the teacher came up to me. She was like, you don't have to come back. I'm just give you an A. I'm going to pass you. There's no need for you to come back. You've learned everything that I will teach.

She was like, you should think about going into communications and, you know, acting and stuff. So I was like, wow. Okay. Okay, okay, fuck it, let's do it, right? So I went and I became a DJ at that college. But in the meantime, my friend wanted to do criminal justice. So I was like, that sounds so interesting. And my aunt, everybody and my family is cops and drug enforcement agents and all kinds of shit.

So I was like, yeah, I'm going to check it out. So I went and I audited a class and I was like, oh, I'm fucking. And I was so into it. I was like, this is it. But I also liked doing the communications thing. So when I transferred to Colorado State, okay, so being at a small college is completely different than being at a really large college. You don't have so much freedom to pick your things like that. So it was a little hard trying to figure out what I was doing.

So I was doing really hardcore criminal justice classes. But I know I was into it, right? I know I was into it, but I was more fun. And then I was partying hard, so I would show up to my, it was a drug class. It was like a drug, like, you know, learning about drugs and stuff and drug enforcement agents. And I would show up to that class, drunk as fuck. Because we would drink after practice, so I would be fucked up. And he came up to me one time.

He says, so what is it that you're trying to get out this career? And I said it to him. I was like, I want to be a serial killer finder. And he was like, this, I don't, I don't think that's what it's called. And I was like, well, that's what they're going to call me. And he was like, well, you know, I know that you're drunk, right? Like, you come to class drunk every, is there a problem? Are you having a problem? I was like, no. I was like, I'm 19. And I'm having fun. Oh, my God. What did you do in college? And he busted up laughing. He was like, you're funny as fuck. So then I'm walking with my friend. I'm walking with my friend and going through

Hardee's. We had just came from Hardee's. I'm going to go home and get ready for practice. She's going to a class. We passed by this sign that said, funniest person on campus. And it was a contest. And she was like, yo, you should do that. And I was like, are you crazy? No, I'm not Richard Pryor. I'm not. Wopi Goldberg. She said, yeah, bitch, you're not. But you're funny as fuck. She was like, do you not know? how funny you are? She was like, everybody always invites you to the party. Did you notice that? Did you notice everybody always comes over and sits by and everybody starts laughing. Like, do you know you can make anyone laugh? And then that's when everything started coming to me.

Like I was like, don't sign me up. But when I was walking home, I was like, yeah, I've always been kind of funny. Even when I was eight years old, like you say, you go back to the eight year old. I was out of dumb, tumbling, making my friends laugh, doing fun shit. I always like. to laugh. That was my fucking thing when I was young. Laughing was just so fun. Like when you especially if I made somebody laugh but laughing all together and my dad

was hilarious. So like we was always laughing like as a whole like when we had all the family over everybody's funny. You could just hear people laughing and yeah and that was something I always loved. So when I got to the apartment to meet her because we was going to go drink

and she was like bitch I signed you up for the contest. she signed you up. I said, what? Why would you do that? Why would you do that? I told you not to do that. And then I started laughing.

And she was like, you know, you're funny. You know, I was like, no, bitch, I can't do this. I can't go on stage. She was like, you're going to do it. Yes, you can, and you're going to. And I rehearsed all week because I've apparently had some jokes that I guess I thought I was going to do. And I won. And from.

That is so quiet. But it was really, really not even about the contest. It was about me sitting. observing, like, this is something that I didn't know I could do. I was observing the other people. I knew what they was going to do. Like, I knew this girl was going to be too drunk to perform. I knew this guy was going to be too nervous to perform. Like, I was just checking little things out. And then when I went up on stage, he introduced me. I'm telling you, for real, Sophia, as soon as I touched the mic, I knew that I knew that that was what I was going to do the rest of my life.

Wow. It really found you. Like your, your calling found you. Yeah, I think so. The way I want to talk with this woman forever and honestly wish we were doing it over dinner with a cocktail, tune back in for part two. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.