Leslie F*cking Jones

by Leslie Jones

We have to take care of ourselves and realize the wonderfulness in all of us. Because once we start doing that, once we start with respecting ourselves—really getting into the business of liking ourselves—we’ll realize that each of us is a unique person with God-given gifts that we have to use to the benefit of everyone around us. You are with yourself every day, all day, all night—might as well like yourself.

A lot of stuff needs to be fixed between generations. Every generation thinks they have a new set of issues to deal with, when actually it’s just a different scene, different clothes, different mechanisms, but the same damage getting passed down. And when no one talks about it—when people “forget”—nothing gets fixed. I just wish everybody would have a conversation about it. Every race goes through something—Black, white, Spanish, Asian… No one is free of fucked-upedness. We’ve all got baggage. But if we could just have some compassion for each other’s baggage, everything could be solved so much differently. The older I get, the more compassion I have for Willie Jones Jr.

The thing you notice when you’re around white people is they have a freedom about them that they don’t even realize is freedom. A lot of people are not racist; they’ve just never been around Black people.

I also wrote a joke called “Use Your Titties,” about my grandmother. The joke goes, “My grandmother made me help her put her bra on one time—it was fucking traumatizing. There was titty everywhere. Here’s titty, there’s titty, everywhere there’s titty titty, Old Big Mama had some titties, e-i-e-i-areola. My grandfather would always tell her to use her titties whenever she got in trouble. One time we went fishing and she fell out of the boat; she was flopping around like a fish and grandad shouted, ‘Use your titties! Use them big-ass titties!’”

I may not be a fancy hammer, but I can hit the fuck out of a nail.

I remember hearing Diana Ross once say, “Know who you are because if you don’t, they will make you what they want.” And that was the mistake I was making—I was waiting for Hollywood to make me, but it was never supposed to be that way. I have a bigger purpose. What I try to explain to people is, you are gonna fail. But failing helps you recognize success. Failure is not bad, but I’m also not glamorizing it. I’m glamorizing growing. I think if I had made it earlier, I would not be who I am today, because I would have stopped growing, and may not have reached the full potential I was capable of. We sometimes rush to make it instead of respecting the journey. Jamie Foxx was so right about living life, having all the experiences, all the hurts, the rejection, the happiness, the sadness. It all goes together to make up who you are. Go through it all—it’s yours. You should love it and own it as yours. It’s what helps you love yourself, and all of you, not just the good parts. You may not be perfect, but you are somebody, and you have a story. You don’t need to be anyone but who you are. So many of us are trying to escape from who we are. Stand in yourself. I swear, if you start that work, you will be amazed to find out you are awesome. There is only one you.

In the end, what I learned in the pandemic, and since, is what so many of us learned: life is life. It’s not supposed to be easy all the time, and it’s never as easy as we want it to be. But live through your trauma, stop running from yourself—you are your best friend. Think about it—would you let someone hurt your best friend? No. Do the same for yourself. You will get the biggest reward: happiness, even in a storm. Grant yourself some grace because life can be short, but it can be long as fuck, too. You wake up every day and you hope you make it back to your bed safely. You hope you get good sleep, and you hope you wake the fuck up. That’s it.