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NBC said Leslie Jones is free to keep posting about Beijing Olympics on Twitter

Ryan Young
Staff writer
·3 min read
13

Former “Saturday Night Live” star and Olympics superfan Leslie Jones is free to continue with her Twitter commentary of the Games, NBC said on Monday night.

Jones has again been tweeting videos of her reacting to the Beijing Olympics, something she has done for several Olympics now. Her hilarious commentary has drawn plenty of praise from fans since she first started doing it for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

However Jones slammed NBC on Monday after she said some of her videos have been blocked on Twitter.

NBC said in a statement, via The New York Times, that it was not responsible for any of Jones’ tweets being blocked and that she is free to continue.

“She’s free to do her social media posts as she has done in the past,” a network spokesman said, via The Times. “She’s a super fan of the Olympics and we’re super fans of hers.”

‘Leslie Jones [does not] stay anywhere I’m not welcomed’

Jones, early on Monday morning, put out a statement on Twitter saying that she doesn’t “stay anywhere I’m not welcomed.”

“I’m starting to feel like this should be my last Olympics I live tweet,” she wrote. “I know I know, another celebrity bitching. But I’m tired of fighting the folks who don’t want me to do it. They block my videos and they get folks who think they can do it like me. And I’m tired of fighting them. I love the athletes and they love me doing it. And I know y’all love it. But now it’s just gotten too hard. And no one is fighting for or with me. Soooo I guess I’ll leave it to the professionals. But thank you for all the love.”

Jones didn’t specifically mention NBC by name, though she is presumably referring to the network. Some of her videos, which almost always show her watching TV coverage, likely violated NBC’s broadcasting rights. The network purchased exclusive rights to the Olympics for $7.75 billion through 2032.

Jones first started posting videos about the Olympics in 2016, and helped NBC with its coverage of the Rio de Janeiro Games and the PyeongChang Games in 2018. She did not help at the Tokyo Olympics last year, though she is once again posting videos with her commentary this month while watching the Beijing Games from home.

Warning: These videos contain some language that is NSFW.

Jones explained her love of the Olympics in a video earlier in the night while she was watching figure skating.

Warning: This video contains language that is NSFW.

“You need to understand that when I’m doing this, my spirit is totally in it,” she said, in part. “I feel it, I love these people. I do this with real passion. Not no fake ass s**t.”

Jones has not commented since NBC’s statement.