Leslie Jones nearly beat up an ‘SNL’ director with Tiffany Haddish

Leslie Jones does not have fond memories of one particular Saturday Night Live director.

The comedian recently recalled an unpleasant incident with an unnamed person who worked on the show’s digital shorts, saying she “hated” all the sketches that revolved around her fictional romance with her costar Kyle Mooney.

“The guy who would direct those was a f—ing asshole,” Jones said in a new interview with the Toure Show podcast. “And I don’t give a f— if you see this. You was a f—. You still are probably a f—ing dickhead. A f—ing narcissistic dickhead.”

Jones added that she thought the director had an inflated view of his work. “He’s just like one of the white boys who thought that he’s doing f—ing Shakespeare,” she said. “No, this is a f—ing sketch, and you’re not funny, and you’re not creating nothing beautiful. You’re just being an a–hole with this tedious f— s—. It was just like little s— like that and then he just — I can’t explain it.”

The comedian also accused the director of racism. “It’s like, the way a person can look at you that you just like, ‘Yeah, I know you’re calling me a n—-. I know you’re calling me a n—-.’ Because he was a Mormon too.”

Jones went on to say that her on-set dynamic with the filmmaker was so tense that it almost led to a physical altercation between them — and implicated another famous comedian who was hosting the show that week.

“He would just do little f—ing antsy a–hole s—. And I mean, oh my God, the night that me and Tiffany Haddish almost beat him up…” Jones recalled. “Yeah, me and Tiffany almost f—ed him up one night.”

Representatives for Haddish did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment. 

Jones described the sketch in question. “That was the wedding. That was when me and Kyle got married,” she said, referring to a digital short in which she tied the knot with Mooney from May 13, 2017. “I’m going to get in trouble with all this. I don’t care. But me and Kyle got married, and I already just didn’t like [the director]. And we were going so long.”

The comedian said she was frustrated with the late-night shooting schedule, which seemed unnecessarily long, and that the director tried to excuse the delays by blaming SNL boss Lorne Michaels for being late to shoot his cameo in the sketch.

“It’s on a Friday night, so we gotta come to work the next day, and you still shooting this f—ing pre-tape,” Jones said. “So we’re like, ‘What the f—? Why is it taking so f—ing long?’ [He said,] ‘Well, we’re waiting on Lorne —’ ‘No, you can shoot Lorne’s part when he get here! What the f—?'”

Jones said she and the director almost came to blows because she tried to leave the set. “He comes to the back because I was like, ‘Yo, I’m going home. Y’all done had me here since 4 o’clock. I gotta come to work tomorrow,'” she explained. “I’m in this big wedding dress. I still got this cut on my arm. I cut my arm with the wire that was in there. So my hand’s bleeding and s—. I’m like, ‘Nah, I’m going home.'”

In her recollection of the night, the director tried to stop Jones from leaving. “This motherf—er was like, ‘What makes you so f—ing special?'” she remembered. “And I was like, ‘Who the f— you talking to?’ [He said,] ‘You, I’m talking to you. What makes you so f—ing special? Lorne is this, this, and this.’ And I said, ‘Motherf—er, I know you’re not f—ing talking to me. What makes me special is that the f—ing sketch is about me and Kyle, not you. So what the f—?'”

Jones then began brainstorming the best way to attack the director. “I was like, ‘Yo, you need to step off because I’m about to f— you up. I’m about to f— you up,'” she recalled. “And like, I f—ed up dudes before. So all I’m thinking is — like, my dad was an army man. He has taught me too much, because all I was thinking was what I was going to hit first. And he got this big-ass Adam’s apple. That’s like, hit him in the Adam’s Apple. That n—- will not be able to f—ing stand up. So I’m squaring off. I’m ready to bring my head up to his chin. I’m ready, right? I’m yelling, like going off, like, ‘Get the f— out my face.’ And he kept stepping to me.”

She said the commotion caught the attention of Haddish. “Tiffany comes out the dressing room because that was her week [hosting],” Jones said. “She was like, ‘What’s up, cuz?’ Like, that’s my girl! ‘What’s up, cuz? Who the f— talkin’ s—? Who talkin’ s—?’ I said… ‘We about to f— him up.'”

However, Haddish did not appear on the May 13, 2017 episode with the wedding sketch. That segment, titled “Kyle and Leslie,” was part of an episode that was hosted by Melissa McCarthy and featured musical performances by Haim. McCarthy and the Haim sisters all show up in the wedding sketch. Jones could not remember the band’s name, referring to them as the “all girl group that’s like Hanson,” but said they were aware of the “steaming” tension on set, and that they “looked like they had popcorn” while observing the animosity.

However, Haddish did appear in a follow-up sketch when she hosted the show on Nov. 11, 2017. That sketch, “Beck and Kyle,” also revolved around Jones’ fake relationship with Mooney, but it did not have a wedding and instead featured the SNL cast attending a masquerade ball. Haddish’s sketch had no overlap with Haim — or any musical guest, for that matter, as the musician who performed on that episode was Taylor Swift, who did not appear in the masquerade sketch.

Jones said the director continued shooting with her after their tense encounter. “Do you know we had to still go and shoot after that? So this motherf—er would come over and try to give a direction. He tried — I was like, ‘Don’t you put your motherf—ing hand on me.’ And then the camera would come on.”

She concluded, “That night was crazy.”

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While Jones never confirmed the identity of her adversary, the director in question could have been Dave McCary, who specialized in SNL‘s digital segments from 2013 to 2018. McCary was childhood friends with Mooney and also had a longstanding friendship with Bennett. They formed the comedy troupe Good Neighbor, and he frequently helmed SNL sketches that revolved around their performances. 

A representative for McCary did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment. 

Though McCary is not “Mormon,” he did grow up in a “pretty intense Christian” environment that Jones could have mistaken for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. “My dad was a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, and from an early age I was put off by being force-fed a belief system,” McCary said in a 2017 New Yorker interview. “So I was really fiending for the darkest, sexiest stuff, the absolute slums of life.”

McCary channeled some of that religious experience into his 2017 film, Brigsby Bear, which followed a young man (Mooney) who escapes a cult. McCary has recently produced movies like A Real Pain and Problemista and shows like The Curse and Fantasmas alongside his wife, Emma Stone.

McCary left SNL after season 43 in 2018, while Jones departed the series after season 44 in 2019.