Leslie Jones is a talented comedian and actress, but she's accomplished another feat entirely by gaining fame just for her personality. Look no further than her character in Ghostbusters. Patty had some Patty-specific characteristics, like her obsession for weird facts about New York, but she was essentially Jones — a person with a giant, infectious personality that draws you in.
In another interesting development, Jones will now join Team NBC as she heads to Rio as an Olympic correspondent. The actress made the announcement in a video on Twitter in which she donned an NBC Olympics baseball cap, waved an American flag, and sang, “Guess who’s going to Rio.” The network further confirmed the news to Variety, which was another bonus that came about because she stayed true to her brand — and her brand is off-the-wall hilarity.
Since the opening ceremony for the Summer Games at the Maracana Stadium, Jones has been tweeting up a storm in praise for Team U.S.A. and riling up her social media fan base. The actress featured in a string of videos wearing an American flag-inspired outfit and cheering athletes like swimmer Conor Dwyer and Ginny Thrasher, the latter winning the first gold medal for her country in Rio. Soon after she gained the attention of the Internet, she caught the attention of Jim Bell, executive producer of the Olympics. Seemingly joking, he asked her on Twitter if she wanted to come to Rio, but now we can see that wasn’t a joke at all.
When fans thought they couldn’t love Game of Thrones anymore more than they already did, in comes Jones narrating an episode for Seth Meyers to reignite our passion. If anyone can liven up NBC’s coverage of the games, it’s Jones. Though, I doubt she’ll be allowed to scream, “Swim, motherfucker!” at Dwyer on national television.
See some highlights of Jones’ Olympics tweets below: