The BET Awards are upon us!
The annual awards ceremony airs Sunday, June 25 with special performances from SZA, A$AP Rocky, Maxwell, Mary J. Blige, Migos, Bruno Mars, Future, and more.
Hosting the big event will be Saturday Night Live‘s Leslie Jones, bringing her real and raw humor to the BET stage.
ESSENCE spoke to the comedian about hosting this year’s show, where she revealed the celebrity she’s most excited to meet, how she’ll handle any flubs, and the BET show she’d really like to see return.
Fans of Jones are aware of the type of comedian she is and they won’t be disappointed when she takes the stage.
“I want everybody to come to the show to have a good time. To laugh, relax your shoulders and just be open to everything that’s happening. Joy, joy, joy,” she told ESSENCE.
“I want everybody to be laughing. I want everybody to be relaxed in the audience. I want everybody to enjoy themselves.”
While Jones’ number one focus is making sure everyone has fun, she’s prepared for any flubs that may occur. She won’t be announcing any winners, but Jones says if she does make a mistake “I would really make a joke right there.”
Other than hosting, Jones is excited to see all the famous faces who will flood the event, specifically, Jessica Dime.
“You’re gonna laugh, but I want to see Jessica Dime from Love & Hip Hop,” she says. “I really, really, really cannot wait to meet her. I think she’s so pretty and she just reminds me of, like, I want to be her homegirl.”
Who wouldn’t want to be friends with Jessica Dime?
Hosting the BET Awards is an accomplishment Jones can check off her list, but when she admits that she’d like to see the network revive ComicView, we wonder if she’d like to comeback to host it.
“I would love for them to bring out a version of that now,” she tells ESSENCE, “with fresh new comics. Especially with the comics that are out now, they could really have a showdown. I don’t know if I would host it, but I’m sure there are other people that could.”
And, while hosting a revival of ComicView might not be on her list of things to do, Jones is itching to drop a comedy special.
“I’m always working on that. Anytime I go up, I’m always writing material and putting it away and working out things. I mean, I hope the goal would be maybe towards the end of this year I could tape it. Maybe.”
We’ve got out fingers crossed.