Luenell came to Portia to laugh, remember and say exactly what she means
Luenell did not come to Portia for anything quiet, polite or particularly demure. The Oakland-born comedy force sat down with Portia Bruner and gave exactly the kind of conversation her career has trained us to expect: funny, blunt, personal and completely uninterested in sanding down the edges.
She talks nails, her early days in church choir and theater, her long-running Las Vegas residency, motherhood, losing her husband, learning how to let love back in — and yes, what’s it like having Al B. Sure! as a boy toy?
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Luenell Has Stories to Tell
On Portia, Luenell gets into comedy longevity, Las Vegas, motherhood, grief and the friendship with Al B. Sure! that eventually changed its dynamic.
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“I Don’t Tell Jokes. I Tell Stories.”
That is Luenell’s own explanation for how she approaches comedy, and it may be the cleanest summary of why she has lasted. She studied English in college, calls herself a strong writer and says the material works because people recognize themselves in it.
She is also very clear about what she is not trying to do: chase younger audiences or reinvent herself into somebody designed for TikTok. Luenell says people her age need somebody speaking to their lives too — aging, health, menopause, all of it — and she is perfectly comfortable being that cheerleader.
Public performance never scared her much anyway. Before stand-up, there was church choir, and before television there was theater. In her telling, being in front of an audience was already part of the muscle memory long before comedy became the career.
Seven Years in Vegas and Still Selling the Tickets
The career conversation quickly lands in Las Vegas, where Luenell says she has been holding down a comedy residency for seven years at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club.
She wears another distinction with pride: Luenell says she is currently the only Black woman in Las Vegas with a comedy residency. And she is refreshingly unsentimental about what keeps any residency alive. Funny matters, personality matters, but eventually somebody has to put your face on the marquee and people have to buy the tickets.
Seven years later, they still are.
She is also proud of her Netflix special Town Business, which she says was produced by Dave Chappelle. Luenell laughs that even the day before the interview, a man sitting next to her on a plane happened to be watching the special. Not a bad little in-flight review.
Motherhood Arrived Right in the Middle of Grief
The conversation shifts sharply when Portia asks about Luenell becoming a mother. She was 36 when she had her daughter, and the pregnancy came only a month after her own mother died.
Luenell says she was in denial for months because she could not imagine becoming a mother without her own mother there. She did not even take a pregnancy test until around five months in, convinced the pregnancy somehow could not really be happening while she was grieving.
Career and motherhood then required a decision that brought its own guilt. When Luenell moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, her daughter stayed with her father and his mother while Luenell pushed forward with work. She makes one point especially clear: her daughter was with her father, not passed off to a random friend or relative. Still, Luenell admits there were plenty of tears and missed firsts.
The relationship has come full circle. Her daughter is grown now and, when life allows, works closely beside her mother — helping on the road and becoming part of the machine that keeps Luenell moving.
She Still Misses Her Husband — and the Quiet Life They Shared on the Road
Portia also brings up the loss of Luenell’s husband after a period of illness. Luenell says she misses him and remembers how often he traveled with her. Their road life did not always need entertainment outside the room: the two could spend days in a hotel without turning on the television, just listening to music, laughing, talking and sleeping.
She is equally unsentimental about caregiving. Luenell says she did the difficult, intimate work when it was needed, but she does not romanticize herself as somebody naturally built for it. She would rather pay for excellent care than pretend the role came easily. That honesty is very Luenell: love does not have to be polished into sainthood to be real.
So, About Luenell and Al B. Sure!
Then we get to the part everybody knew was coming.
Luenell says she and Al B. Sure! had already been very close friends for many years before the dynamic changed. Her version is wonderfully simple: she did not force it. He changed the relationship, and she was open to where it went.
Her larger point is even more direct. You cannot make somebody love you, you cannot make somebody become your partner, and Luenell is not interested in chasing anybody into a relationship. She jokes that when Al made the move, she was hardly going to object — because, well, Al B. Sure!
The two remain extremely close, even while both stay busy. Luenell says he has a habit of unexpectedly popping up on her, something she describes as equal parts sweet and heart-attack inducing. Portia jokes that if he walked into the studio, the interview would immediately become a two-parter.
For all of Luenell’s public toughness, she also pushes back on the idea that strength means she has no softer side. That side exists, she says. Everybody just does not get access to it.
Watch Luenell Get Candid About Comedy, Love and Al B. Sure! on Portia
Luenell joins Portia Bruner for a wide-ranging Studio P conversation covering her comedy career, Las Vegas residency, motherhood, grief and her longtime connection with Al B. Sure!
Source: Portia / FOX 5 Atlanta / YouTube.
