*The hilarious Leslie Jones is revealing some fascinating segments of her life and career in her new memoir, “Leslie F***ing Jones.” One is that she and Kenan Thompson once planned to shoot (with a gun, not a camera!) Whoopi Goldberg on air, live!
Goldberg has appeared on “Saturday Night Live” several times over the years. At one time, Jones and Thompson hatched a plan for the “Weekend Update” segment, which they thought would be funny, according to her book. They wrote a script that would feature the real Goldberg on “Weekend Update” with co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che.
“In the sketch, Colin would say, ‘Leslie, I know it’s you,’ and Whoopi would say, ‘No, no, I know Leslie plays me, but it’s really me, I’m really Whoopi,'” Jones wrote in her book.
“Colin then says, ‘Yeah, yeah. So what would happen if I do this?’ and pulls out a gun,” the excerpt continues. “Whoopi looks terrified. ‘Yo, no, seriously, I’m Whoopi Goldberg. I’m not Leslie, I’m really Whoopi.’ Colin looks at her, doesn’t believe her, and says, “Oh yeah…’ And then shoots her.”
For Jones, this was supposed to be funny. However, it didn’t quite amuse anyone else, other than Jones herself and Thompson. The two took the script to their boss, Lorne Michaels, who not only didn’t find it funny as well but also rejected it on the spot. What they hoped to do live was perhaps too dark for national TV, even if it was a joke.
Jones now writes that their boss was “completely missing the point.”
“We’re not going to kill Whoopi Goldberg on national TV for a personal joke,” Michael insisted.
Even Colin Jost and Michael Che, who were to appear alongside Goldberg, were not impressed.
Acting the script, after shooting Goldberg, the show would cut to various shots of Michaels doing things like playing golf and taking a shower as part of a “We’ll be right back” interstitial, spliced with shots of the chaos playing out onscreen.
“Kenan and I were weeping with laughter when we wrote this,” Jones narrates in her new memoir. “We were actually going to shoot Whoopi Goldberg on SNL!”
“In the ‘Update’ office we were acting the Whoopi sketch out and laughing the whole time,” she adds. “When we finished, Kenan said, ‘It’s so funny. Right?'”
“‘You guys are nuts,’ someone said. ‘You can’t kill Whoopi Goldberg on live TV,'” she continues. “‘She’s not dead!’ I shouted. ‘She just got shot.'”
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