Leslie Jones won’t be returning to Saturday Night Live for it’s upcoming 45th season, opting instead to focus on her film career and upcoming Netflix comedy special.
The upcoming season of Saturday Night Live just got a little less funny.
If you are a fan of Leslie Jones’ drop ins on Weekend Update to give her sometimes blistering and always hilarious commentaries (which I assume you are, because why on earth wouldn’t you be?), then prepare yourself to mourn what is often the most interesting part of the Weekend Update segment.
After five seasons on Saturday Night Live, news dropped earlier this afternoon that Leslie Jones, Weekend Update extraordinaire and master of the live-tweet, will not be returning for the newest season.
Instead, Jones will choose to focus on her burgeoning film career and her newly announced Netflix comedy special, set to premiere in 2020. She’s slated to star in I am Maurice, an indie boxing drama with Chris Rock, and has been cast alongside Kristen Bell in the indie film Queenpins.
She is also currently filming the Coming to America sequel, Coming 2 America, which has original stars Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and James Earl Jones, along with a lengthy list of new cast members, including Wesley Snipes and KiKi Layne.
Leslie Jones joined the Saturday Night Live team as writer. However, after appearing as a guest commentator on what would go on to be a rather popular Weekend Update segment in spring 2014, Jones was then upped to being part of the main cast in fall of 2014. Since then, she’s been in an incredible amount of popular and hilarious sketches (including the Weezer argument skit opposite Matt Damon, which is utterly fantastic and painfully relatable to anyone that’s ever been a part of any fandom).
Her work on Saturday Night Live landed her three Emmy nominations — a supporting actress nomination in 2017 and 2018, and a third nomination this year for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the song “The Upper East Side.”