Leslie Jones left SNL late last summer, not returning for the 45th season, which would have been her sixth. She had a rough entryway into the long-running live sketch show; she said Chris Rock had to twist her arm to audition for honcho Lorne Michaels. And her abrupt departure from the show wasn’t great either. She’s landed on her feet just fine, hosting and executive producing the new reboot of the nutty game show Supermarket Sweep. But while promoting the show, she briefly discussed her previous big-time gig. And she’s not too nostalgic.
“I don’t miss it. At all,” Jones told Entertainment Tonight. “That job was hard, man. That job was like two jobs and very restrictive, too. I wasn’t very free there.”
Jones’ SNL tenure found her regularly appearing as herself on Weekend Update, unloading about her dating life, reproductive rights, and spanking Drake. The exposure she got from the show catapulted her into the mainstream, which wasn’t always for the best: She was singled out for extra online abuse due to her involvement in the all-female Ghostbusters reboot, which temporarily drove her from Twitter. But Supermarket Sweep sounds like it’s going well, even if they’re doing a game show in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic.
“It’s just, you know, a comedian’s dream come true,” Jones said of her game show duties. “When you see the carts and you see the game play and you go, ‘Oh, OK and I’m hosting it. Oh, this is fun!’”
(Via ET)