The Original Bad Girl of Comedy Is Bringing Jimmy Kimmel to Her Live Podcast
The original bad girl of comedy, Luenell, stopped by NBC4 Los Angeles’ Hollywood ReelTime and came bearing news: Jimmy Kimmel is her next live podcast guest.
Luenell says Kimmel — her boss through her long-running residency at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in Las Vegas — will join her at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank for the next installment of her live podcast. The podcast tapes there on the first Wednesday of every month, and the October 7 show is set for 7:30 p.m.
entertainment
Luenell Live
The bad girl of comedy keeps building her live podcast — one unfiltered guest at a time.
Some links may be affiliate links. INYIM may earn from qualifying purchases.
The guest list has already included David Alan Grier, Kathy Griffin, George Lopez and Angela Gibbs, and Luenell says the idea is less about a standard celebrity interview than getting to the part she actually wants to know: when did everything change? When did somebody go from being a regular person with a dream to somebody the rest of us suddenly knew?
That curiosity is also why she already has Jeremy Meeks lined up after Kimmel. Luenell makes no secret of the fact that she wants the full story — career turns, strange chapters, messy bits and all.
The podcast is also part of a much bigger plan. Luenell still wants her own late-night talk show. She tells Hollywood ReelTime that late-night television is still painfully short on diversity, particularly when it comes to Black women, and she knows exactly what kind of show she wants: something with a Hugh Hefner-era Playboy After Dark feel, liquor, a live audience and enough freedom for her to actually be herself.
And that last part matters. Luenell says she would love for the podcast to eventually be picked up by a network, but she is not interested in sanding herself down to get there. As she puts it, she wants to run the show herself, have a say and be a boss. “I’m not really listening to what people say I can’t do,” she says. “I’m just doing.”
There is already proof that sticking to her lane has worked. Luenell has held a residency at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in Las Vegas since the venue opened, a run she says will hit seven years next year. She also says she has already extended the deal for at least two more years. Her live calendar backs up just how much Vegas remains part of her schedule, with multiple October dates already on the books.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Luenell talks about her Dave Chappelle-produced Netflix special, life between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, touring with her daughter, her relationship, dream guests — Michelle Obama tops that list — and a book project she refuses to make lighter just to make it easier to sell.
“My story is not light,” she says. “My story is dark. But I overcame it.” Which, frankly, sounds like exactly why a Luenell late-night show could work: she has never been especially interested in pretending the messy parts did not happen.
Luenell Stops by NBC4 Los Angeles’ Hollywood ReelTime
Watch Luenell talk Jimmy Kimmel, her live podcast, late-night ambitions, Las Vegas residency, family, love and the next chapters she is building on her own terms.
Sources: NBC4 Los Angeles / Hollywood ReelTime; Hey Luenell official schedule.
