Annette Leslie Jones (born September 7, 1967) is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She was a cast member and writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2014 to 2019, and hosted the ABC game show Supermarket Sweep. She has also been a featured performer at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal and the Aspen Comedy Festival. In 2010, her one-hour comedy special, Problem Child, was broadcast on Showtime. Jones starred in Ghostbusters (2016) as Patty Tolan. In 2017 and 2018, Jones was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Saturday Night Live.
Jones was born on September 7, 1967, in Memphis, Tennessee. She had a younger brother, Rodney Keith Jones (1971–2009). Her father, Willie Jones Jr., was in the United States Army, and her family relocated frequently. Her family moved to Los Angeles, when her father took a job at Stevie Wonder's radio station, KJLH, as an electronics engineer. Jones attended high school in Lynwood, California, where she also played basketball; her father suggested that she play the sport because of her height.
Jones attended Chapman University on a basketball scholarship. Initially unsure of what she wanted to study, Jones worked as a disc jockey at the student radio station, KNAB, and contemplated playing professional basketball overseas. When her coach, Brian Berger, left Chapman in 1986 for the head-coaching job at Colorado State University, Jones followed. Once at Colorado State, Jones contemplated pursuing a pre-law degree, but changed her major several times, including to accounting and computer science, before settling on communications. She left Colorado without a degree.
Jones began doing stand-up comedy in college in 1987, when a friend signed her up for a "Funniest Person on Campus" contest. After winning the contest, Jones left school for Los Angeles. She performed at comedy clubs while working day jobs at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles and UPS to make ends meet. Comedians Mother Love and Dave Chappelle encouraged her to move to New York City to hone her craft. She lived there for over two years, during which she appeared on BET's ComicView, before returning to Los Angeles. She performed at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, but her shows there received unfavorable reviews. She then went on tour, opening for Jamie Foxx where she was booed by his audience. Foxx advised her to "live life for a little while" to gain experiences for her comedy; Jones stopped performing for three years. She then performed in smaller clubs until 2010, when she began asking for spots at The Comedy Store and secured prime-time slots for her act. In 2012, Chris Rock saw her perform and gave her name to several of "the biggest managers in comedy" all of whom "didn't get it". The following year, Rock helped Jones secure an audition for Saturday Night Live, which she landed.
In 2008, Jones was part of Katt Williams's It's Pimpin' Pimpin' tour.
Netflix signed Jones for a stand-up special slated for 2020.
In December 2013, Saturday Night Live held a casting call to add at least one African American woman to the show, and Jones auditioned. Prior to being asked to audition, Jones had criticized the show, saying that the show, and especially cast member Kenan Thompson, was "not funny". Sasheer Zamata was added as a featured player, while Jones and LaKendra Tookes were hired as writers. Jones appeared during the Weekend Update segment of the May 3, 2014 episode hosted by Andrew Garfield, where her jokes about her current dating problems and her potential effectiveness as a breeding slave sparked controversy.
Jones appeared in the first and third episodes of the 40th season, hosted by Chris Pratt and Bill Hader, respectively. On October 20, 2014, Jones was promoted to the cast as a featured player, and made her official debut on the October 25, 2014 episode hosted by Jim Carrey. At age 47, Jones became the oldest person to join the show as a cast member (surpassing Michael McKean and George Coe, who were 46 when they joined the show in 1994 and 1975, respectively). Jones' addition marked the first time in SNL history that the show's cast included more than one African American woman; moreover, the 40th season was the first to have five concurrent African American cast members, beating the previous record of three. Jones subsequently returned for Seasons 41, 42 (where she was promoted to Repertory Status), 43, and 44.
In 2017 and 2018, Jones was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on SNL.
The 44th season was Jones's last on SNL.
In 2006, Jones appeared in Master P's film Repos.
In 2014, Jones appeared in Chris Rock's directorial film, Top Five; Rock has said a follow-up is in the works, telling Complex Magazine, "Some people really shine in Top Five. You might want to see a little more Leslie Jones."
In 2015, Jones appeared in the Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer project, Trainwreck; reportedly Apatow and Schumer wrote a part specifically for Jones after seeing her turn in Top Five.
In 2016, she starred in the reboot Ghostbusters as Patty Tolan, alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon.
Jones appeared in Coming 2 America alongside Tracy Morgan, Rick Ross, and KiKi Layne. The film is a sequel to Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy.
She has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Actors Branch since 2017.
During the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jones regularly live-tweeted events and posted videos of her reactions. Enthusiasm for Jones's commentary grew, with articles appearing like The Huffington Post's "Watching Leslie Jones Watch The Olympics Is Better Than the Actual Olympics". Television producer Mike Shoemaker, one of Jones' Twitter followers, posted on Twitter that his friend Jim Bell, NBC's executive producer of the network's Olympics coverage, should add Jones to NBC's team of commentators covering the Games; Bell responded on Twitter the next day asking Jones to join NBC in Rio de Janeiro. She accepted and flew to Rio de Janeiro, covering swimming, track and field, gymnastics, and beach volleyball for NBC.
Jones reprised her duties at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, and live-tweeted again for the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. She live-tweeted for the final time for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. She released a message on Twitter stating that this would be the last Olympics that she would live-tweet, claiming broadcaster NBC was pressuring her to stop. She also accused Snoop Dogg of not caring about the Olympics or the athletes.