'SNL's Leslie Jones Has Some More Smoke for Emma Stone's Husband

Leslie Jones has a new comedy special, Life Part 2, hitting Peacock this weekend. With that comes an always entertaining round of interviews, particularly when she’s once again taking shots at a former SNL director who is almost definitely Emma Stone’s husband Dave McCary.

The moment happened while Jones was getting candid about why she decided to leave the show after just five seasons. Most performers stick around for at least seven seasons, but Jones was already starting to notice a pattern: She takes over every sketch. It was a feeling Jones did not enjoy, and it was evident not long after “Leslie Wants to Play Trump” went viral.

Don’t get me wrong. Jones loved the sketch, but she made sure to throw some more smoke at the director, who was presumably McCary. She really didn’t like that guy. Via The Daily Beast:

I love that sketch, too, where you auditioned to play Trump. Was that your idea? Or where did that come from?

That’s one I’m proud of. I really wanted to play Trump. I went and talked to Lorne and I was like, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I played Trump? It would p—- him off and I would play him so good. And Lorne was like, no. So I was like, this is f—-ed up, Lorne, you don’t never let me play stuff that I like to do. And I forgot who ended up writing it. I think Kyle [Mooney] and Beck [Bennett] and them wrote it. So we did it, and when we got to do the office thing, Lorne kept saying, you’re not gonna be Trump, but I’m gonna let you beat me up. So that was really fun. It was tedious because the director, I didn’t really like him, but it turned out to be a really good pre-tape.

After the sketch took off, Jones noticed that writers were hesitant to put her in sketches, and if they did, she was a “caricature” of herself that dominated the other cast members.

Yeah. But I hated that. And I didn’t like who I was becoming there. So I remember thinking, this is going to be a really hard decision, because, first of all, I don’t think Lorne’s gonna let me go. And two, I’m scared about what’s gonna happen when I do leave. But then I also remember that I was a comic first. I was a really good comic. And I’m gonna be OK. I believe in myself. And you know, Lorne, we had a long talk. I knew he was gonna pull all the, “we’ll pay you more, we’ll give you this.” And then it started coming down to, “hey, I don’t want you to lose your fame.” And it just came back down to, listen, I believe in myself and I gotta go. I gotta go before I can’t go. You know what I’m saying? And he just said, “The good ones always wanna leave.”

The whole interview is worth a read thanks to a great anecdote about Jones clocking Jared Kushner’s racism all the way back in 2015, her thoughts on Ego Nwodim’s departure, and what I’d call a completely accurate prediction.

“Kenan is a rock. He’s so awesome. Oh my god, if he does leave, I don’t know if that show will survive without him. Like I said, I’m not SNL. But Kenan is SNL.”