Luenell Jokes About a Threesome With Jimmy Kimmel & EJ Johnson in Wild “Hey Luenell” Episode

Don Julio, late-night lessons and one imaginary threesome with EJ Johnson.

Dig out a brand-new sparkling episode of Hey Luenell Live!, where comedic veteran Luenell welcomes her boss and pal Jimmy Kimmel — and somehow gets from late-night hosting advice to an imaginary threesome involving EJ Johnson. Professionality was never going to survive this one.

This one is haphazard in the best possible way. Luenell loses her place, reads from cards because “beauty over everything,” veers off into stories about air conditioning, Italian food, radio DJs, Magic Johnson yachts and whether Jimmy Kimmel’s wife is secretly bougie. Somewhere in there, a joke about tagging along on a yacht turns into Luenell imagining herself, Jimmy and EJ Johnson as the world’s least expected threesome. Then, right in the middle of Kimmel explaining the pressure to be “more professional,” Luenell basically admits that whole part may not be for her.

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And then comes the clue. While attempting to pronounce “charcuterie,” Kimmel reminds her that she offered him a shot of Don Julio before the show — which he declined because he wanted to retain command of the English language. Luenell immediately plays innocent before Kimmel lands on the exact bottle: Don Julio 1942. Ah. There she is.

Jimmy Kimmel Tells Luenell the Best Interviews Go Off the Rails

Which, conveniently, is exactly what is happening. Luenell asks Kimmel what actually makes a great host, and his answer sounds less like a rulebook than permission for her to remain herself. Go in with a plan, he says, but be prepared to abandon it. Listen to what the guest is saying. If something strange or interesting appears, follow it.

Kimmel points out that some of the best interviews wind up having almost nothing to do with the original plan. He cites difficult guests who require a key to unlock them — Robert De Niro on politics, Harrison Ford pretending he would rather be anywhere else — and the real job becomes figuring out where the conversation suddenly comes alive.

So when Kimmel later says a host has to be “more professional,” Luenell’s response is basically: that part right there may be the problem. “I don’t know if I can do that,” she tells him. Who needs to be professional, right? The woman is building a late-night audition in real time by ignoring half the late-night rules.

First Comes the EJ Johnson Quip — Then Jimmy Makes It a Threesome

The EJ Johnson callback actually starts a few minutes earlier. When Jimmy says he wishes he could dress more like Luenell because he thinks he would be comfortable in her outfit, she instantly shoots back: “You sound like EJ Johnson. Please.” That is the joke: EJ, Magic Johnson’s fashion-obsessed nepo offspring, has spent years becoming a very public, very polarizing reality-TV personality through dramatic feminine looks, designer fashion and deliberately over-the-top self-presentation. Jimmy saying he could see himself comfortably dressed like Luenell gives her the opening, and she takes it immediately.

Jimmy protests that she should not even joke about comparing him to EJ. Luenell essentially reminds the room: it’s a joke — this is a comedy club, and inappropriate, hysterical stuff is going to come out of somebody’s mouth. That little exchange matters, because it plants EJ in the conversation before the later punchline arrives.

So when the conversation later turns to Kimmel finally being invited onto Magic Johnson’s yacht, the EJ reference is already sitting there waiting. Luenell immediately wants in and asks whether she can call out from his Vegas comedy club to go along. Kimmel jokes that, to keep peace at home, maybe they could present the arrangement as a throuple.

His intended third person is, naturally, his wife. But Jimmy is quick with the callback: “Me, you, and EJ?” The room erupts, and Luenell immediately shuts that version down, deciding she’ll take Jimmy’s wife instead. A perfectly sensible resolution to a completely nonsensical detour — and a punchline that only really lands after that first EJ fashion jab.

From Radio Firings to Late Night: Kimmel’s Career Was Not Exactly Tidy Either

Kimmel’s own route into television turns out to be wonderfully unglamorous. He traces it from Brooklyn to Las Vegas, then through a string of radio jobs in Seattle, Phoenix, Tampa, Palm Springs, Tucson and Los Angeles. He was fired more than once — his eventual explanation is simply “insubordination” — before radio led him into writing promos for Fox and eventually appearing in them himself.

That strange little opening turned into more television work, then Win Ben Stein’s Money, and eventually the late-night seat he has now held for more than two decades. Kimmel’s useful advice to anyone starting a talk show is less glamorous still: hire at least a few people who have actually worked on one before. Revolutionary.

Luenell Finally Makes Jimmy Answer the Guest-Host Question

Near the end, Luenell gets to something she has clearly wanted on the record. She reminds Kimmel that when Jimmy Kimmel Live! used guest hosts during his summer vacations, plenty of people got the chair — and she did not. She had asked him directly why she never got even one night.

Kimmel’s answer: once he goes on summer vacation, he deliberately removes himself from the guest-host process so he can actually be on vacation. He says another group handles those choices, precisely so he is not the one fielding everybody’s complaints when he comes back.

Luenell, naturally, is not fully letting him off. She keeps pressing. Kimmel tells her she is indeed “busting” his balls. Friendship!

Kimmel Calls Luenell the Heart and Soul of His Vegas Comedy Club

The messiness never hides the affection underneath it. Luenell thanks Kimmel for the opportunity that became her long-running residency at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in Las Vegas. Kimmel immediately throws the praise back at her, calling her the “heart and soul” of the club and joking that maybe they should take his name off the place and put hers on it.

Later, when asked what he admires about her, Kimmel points to her authenticity. He says she comes across as a real person in a way that is increasingly rare, and the two agree that what they have is chemistry. That is also why this episode works. There is no polite celebrity-interview distance here. They interrupt each other, challenge each other, wander off-topic and somehow keep circling back.

His Best Advice for Luenell’s Late-Night Dream Is Simply: Keep Doing It

Luenell is not shy about the larger ambition behind Hey Luenell. She wants a late-night show, and she tells Kimmel plainly that the lack of women in that space is part of why she wants in. His advice is unusually practical: today, unlike when he was starting, anybody can build the reps themselves through YouTube and keep doing the show until people notice.

The key, he says, is persistence. Most people stop when the audience does not grow quickly enough. If you really love doing it, you keep doing it anyway. Considering Luenell is now several episodes deep, hauling family members into the operation, taking audience questions, losing her cards and apparently keeping 1942 nearby, we would say the commitment portion is covered.

And because this is Luenell, the hour-plus conversation still makes room for Orange Juice Jones, Mike Tyson, Charles Barkley, Guillermo’s origin story, Magic Johnson’s yacht, an imaginary Jimmy-Luenell-EJ Johnson threesome, Kimmel’s son Billy, South Central heat, charcuterie boards and enough side roads to make the original interview outline completely irrelevant. Exactly as Kimmel said: sometimes the detour is the interview.

Watch “Hey Luenell” Live With Jimmy Kimmel

The full live episode runs just over an hour as Luenell and Jimmy Kimmel talk late-night hosting, radio, his Vegas comedy club, difficult interviews, guest hosts, Don Julio 1942 and the EJ Johnson threesome joke that sends the conversation gloriously sideways.

Sources: HeyLuenell / YouTube; Vogue; Essence.