Leslie Jones, an SNL (Saturday Night Live) veteran, reflected upon life post the show, her other gigs, and more in an interview with The Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast. During the episode, Leslie recalled the time Donald Trump hosted the show in 2015, and she also joked about thinking of killing Trump and his family.
In 2015, Donald Trump hosted SNL briefly, where he was accompanied by his wife, Melania, his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner. This was before Trump was elected as the President.
Donald Trump returns to host #SNL November 7 with musical guest @Sia! pic.twitter.com/kreVe6iSpD
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) October 13, 2015
Leslie Jones vividly recalled Trump’s SNL hosting gig and said, “I remember him walking into the room with all the sketches and he looked like a scared little boy. And you know, I never took that dude seriously. Everybody was so uptight and scared, and I just remember sitting at the host meal. I had to go to the host meal and Kenan, for some reason, wasn’t there.”
It was a full house for the Trumps, with Melania, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner in attendance on the SNL sets. Leslie added, “It was Trump, then Melania, then [producer] Lindsay Shookus, then Ivanka, and Jared was sitting beside me. And we were trying to share fish, and I had already noticed that Jared wouldn’t eat off the plate that I wasn’t eating off of. So, I already knew what was up. So I looked at Taran and I said, ‘If I kill this whole side of the table, maybe I’ll save the world’.”
Continuing with the joke about Trump, Leslie Jones added in her signature style humor, “I would’ve saved the world. I would be in jail, but I would’ve saved the world.”
Leslie Jones also featured in the headlines for her insanely famous SNL sketch tape, where she appeared as Donald Trump. The veteran host said that she is really “proud” of it, adding, “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 [expletive language] up, Lorne, you don’t never let me play stuff that I like to do.”
Here’s Leslie Jones as Trump, all our dreams coming true. pic.twitter.com/7ZMglujshB
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) February 12, 2017
Talking about her Trump pre-tape, Leslie added during the interaction. “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.”
When Donald Trump appeared as a host on Saturday Night Live, he performed to Drake’s track Hotline Bling, which became the topic of conversation. Donald Trump rapped while imitating the famous Hotline Bling dance steps during his viral gig as the SNL host. Trump’s opening monologue, where Larry David trolled him, was also a highlight of the show back then.
