She explained that when she first started out, she was getting the roles typical of black women, the ones that required “sass." “For a long time, black women in comedy had to always be sassy. Do the neck, the eye roll. I did a guest spot on one show and I did this one little sassy moment and they made me a regular. It was one line and they were like ‘We need that sass!'” she recalled.
She then added, “That’s why you only ever saw one black girl, and you knew she was bringing the sass. And then, when you look at me and my physical, I’ve always been a big girl and loud. But there’s a lot of loud big girls that ain’t funny. For me, I had to break out of that — I wanted to be funny.”
Now, she is looking to expand her horizons, and she has her sights set on late-night hosting.
“I’m trying to keep tackling hosting. In daytime, women have always traditionally hosted. But in late-night, it’s always been a challenge. I want to tackle a late-night gig. And I kind of have to toot my own horn — I don’t care what she says — I helped Chelsea [Handler] with her show,” she said, laughing. “But she encouraged me because when we did ‘Chelsea Lately,’ we did seven seasons of that show and started out with guests from like ‘Survivor 15,’ but she worked herself up. That’s where I’m going next, tackling late-night in the prime-time space.”
You can check out the full interview here. Check out my interview with Loni Love below. We had some mic problems so warning the audio is low.
