Oprah & Comedian Leanne Morgan: It's Never Too Late to Make Your Dreams Come True

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Speaker 4 Hi, y'all.

Speaker 4 Everybody, thank you for being with me here on the Oprah podcast.

Speaker 4 I'm already talking with a southern accent because my guest is a true blue southern woman. She's having a breakthrough moment right now.
It's one she's been working toward her entire life.

Speaker 4 And if you're listening in your car, on your headphones, or watching on YouTube, get ready to L-O-L for real out loud because joining me in my tea house is the oh, so so funny hilarious comedian actress actress

Speaker 4 author wife mother and grandmama leanne morgan so let me explain how leanne and i met so many people were telling me you have to watch this comedy special on netflix it's called i'm every woman now i'm every woman for many years those of you who watched the show know that was the theme song to the oprah show because i thought i'm every woman so i was alone in my house laughing out out loud.

Speaker 4 And I'm thinking, who is this woman? And why am I just now finding out about her?

Speaker 2 It comes in the middle of the night like a ghost.

Speaker 2 And it's called perimenopause.

Speaker 2 And nobody talks about it. And they should because it lasts 10 years.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you talk a lot about menopause and the women are crying and laughing. And then I told my producers, let's see if she will be a part of the Menopause Revolution.

Speaker 4 And you said yes to that special that we did on ABC. Can you believe your life right now?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 What in the world? What in the world? What in the world? Every day I go, what in the world? Because this is the craziest and more wonderful things happen one right after another for me.

Speaker 4 Well, for anybody listening, that special is still streaming on Hulu, on Menopause, where we actually get serious with some funny things from Leanne about menopause on Hulu.

Speaker 4 But, you know, I didn't know at the time that I met you that there was a book. And then the producer says, you know, she has a book.

Speaker 2 I go, oh my God, she has a book too?

Speaker 4 She has a book. And I started reading this book and it is really, truly laugh out loud funny.
And it's just you telling your

Speaker 4 stories. It's just you and your life.
So let's talk about.

Speaker 4 One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on this podcast is because you are having a moment right now and you have the book book and you have the Netflix special and you're going to leave here and film the finale of your new sitcom premiering on Netflix.

Speaker 4 After 33 years of complete and utter devotion, you find out he's run off with a younger woman.

Speaker 2 How do you know she's younger?

Speaker 4 She has to be. Otherwise, I'm driving off a bridge.

Speaker 4 Any idea how long this has been going on?

Speaker 2 I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I'd say right around the time Amazon delivered that nose hair trimmer.

Speaker 4 This year, you're on the Forbes 50 for 50. You're, I mean, you're,

Speaker 4 you're just soaring in your life right now. And you always knew and felt this inside yourself.
And you never gave up.

Speaker 4 And that's why I thought you would be so inspirational to anybody listening or watching us right now because you just never gave up.

Speaker 2 Well, thank you. That means the world to me.

Speaker 2 Well, I got to tell you, I've got a literary agent, and he said to me, when I started the book, I wanted to tell every horrible thing that ever happened to me, all my sin in the 80s.

Speaker 2 Every horrible, and I have done some stuff. All my sin.
And he, all my sin, and he goes, hey,

Speaker 2 honey.

Speaker 2 You're not John Crawford yet. He goes, let's do a book that introduces you to the world and then maybe a cookbook and then you can tell your sin.

Speaker 2 So someday I want to tell all my sin, but I did tell a little bit of it. You did.

Speaker 4 And most sinning happens with men.

Speaker 2 Yes. I mean, so you did.
Dumb men.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, you were very, very, very, I thought your candor about your early days and dealing with men and the mistakes you made are so helpful to other women who are going through it.

Speaker 4 Because, you know, once we get to a certain age, you can see things that other people cannot see. And if anybody had told you at the time, you wouldn't have been able to see it, right?

Speaker 2 No, I didn't listen to anybody, but I remember watching your talk show. And

Speaker 2 you said one day, and I laughed until I cried, you said, I dated some man that didn't even, that couldn't read.

Speaker 2 They didn't know who the president was. Yes, absolutely.
And I did too. But I look back on it, and

Speaker 2 they probably know who I am, remember me and think she was a ding dong. But anyway, yes, I do, and I do think we all have made, you know, mistakes.
And it's okay to, you know, you know what I think?

Speaker 4 I think about all of those bad men that we had in our lives or bad relationships.

Speaker 4 I remember one day being in my closet looking through some old love letters that I had written to some of them and I like wept for the woman I was like, what an idiot.

Speaker 4 How foolish, how not standing inside myself, how not owning my own self. And so I don't blame any of them because all of them were teachers, don't you think?

Speaker 2 Well, yes, you're right about that. Oh, praise.
You look at the positive side. Yes.
And, but I do too. I, when writing that, I would would grieve for that little girl

Speaker 2 20, 21, flailing, you know, making horrible decisions. And I and I wish I could go back and say to her, it's going to be all right.
Everything's going to be all right.

Speaker 2 But I'd say from like 17 to 24, I was a loose cannon. I mean, it was

Speaker 2 a booger at that time. Well, you know, I got married.
I know. I got married really young.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know if his real name was William or you changed the name in the book.

Speaker 2 I changed the name. Okay, yeah.
And he was beautiful, charismatic, but mean as a snake. And it was, um,

Speaker 2 it was a bad, it was a bad time.

Speaker 4 And then you married, no, you're not married, but then you dated this other guy, Evan. I'm sure that wasn't his name either.

Speaker 2 Right, right. Well, that's the one I married.
The honey, there were so many men. You know, I've always loved men.
Yeah. Oh, I still love them.
Short, big, I don't care.

Speaker 2 I've always been fascinated by them.

Speaker 2 But Evan was the one that I married at 21.

Speaker 2 And I want to say this,

Speaker 2 that this is one thing that I pride myself on.

Speaker 2 I remember him saying to me, he was very verbally abusive, and he said, and he was probably, I don't know, insecure and intimidating and wanting to bring me down.

Speaker 2 But he said, people are making fun of you the way you talk, and you need diction lessons. And I remember thinking, there was a lot of things that I...

Speaker 2 took to heart that he said and that damaged me, but that was the one thing that I thought, he's wrong. This is who I am and I'm going to be who I am, and I'm not going to change that.

Speaker 2 And I'm glad I didn't. I think that has helped me through my life.
But anyway. Yes,

Speaker 4 because

Speaker 4 when I first met you, I said, is this your real voice? Or is this

Speaker 4 you?

Speaker 2 This is me from Adams, Tennessee, 500 people on the Kentucky-Tennessee border that grew dark fire tobacco.

Speaker 2 And my people came and settled in that area, and people didn't leave. And so we've got this very unusual accent that's in Middle Tennessee

Speaker 2 and around Dixon. Do you remember? Yeah, I worked in Dixon.
Yes, absolutely. I was in Robertson County, Dixon, Aaron, all down in there.

Speaker 4 Can you share the moment when you were with Evan and he stormed out of the restaurant? He walked out and you didn't have enough money to pay for the meal.

Speaker 2 Yes, and I don't even remember what he got so mad at me for, but I walked on eggshells for the three years I was married to him, and it was so volatile.

Speaker 2 I just didn't know from day to day what was going to happen. And it was Christmas time, and he got mad over something and walked off and left me in a restaurant.
No cell phone. I had no money.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was a time where there were no cell phones.

Speaker 2 Right. And the waitress came up to me and I said, I don't have any money to pay for this.
And she said, honey, it's okay. I know or I get it or something.

Speaker 2 Something in her face.

Speaker 2 I knew she had been through something bad. And I feel like that was one of those God moments where he sent her to me and it was a sign like, okay,

Speaker 2 you need to get out. I'm shutting this door and this,

Speaker 2 this part of your life, we're getting out and moving on.

Speaker 4 I love that too, since we're talking about men. There was another, I don't remember his name in the book, but there was another guy you were dating and there was a moment where he said,

Speaker 4 I just want to stay home.

Speaker 4 When we get married, I want to stay home and take care of the kids. And you make the living.
And you said, get out of my car right now.

Speaker 2 That was an artist, honey, with long hair. I tell everybody he looked like my sister, but he had a bicycle that had a sticker on it that said, burn fat, not oil.
He didn't have a car. I had the car.

Speaker 2 He was beautiful and he could dance and he was emotional. But yeah, and he could make his own mayonnaise from scratch.
I thought that was pretty nifty.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yeah, he said that to me and I thought, oh, goodness, I don't have any earning potential.

Speaker 2 I want to be the mama.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I like a hunter and a gatherer. Yeah, I said, it's over.
I like a hunter and a gatherer. I like a man that wants to protect and provide.
I do.

Speaker 4 So I love this moment that you tell in the book when the man is coming to sell insurance at the house. And what are you, five, six, eight years old?

Speaker 2 I don't even know. A little bitty child.

Speaker 4 A little bitty thing. And tell that story.
Man comes to sell insurance. There was a time, y'all, when people went door to door selling insurance.
And my mama would always say, tell them I'm not here.

Speaker 4 And I'd say, my mama says she's not here.

Speaker 4 But the insurance man came in and I thought, I have an audience.

Speaker 2 I need to tap.

Speaker 2 And I had no tap shoes or anything like that. We lived so far out and so rural that I never got to take any dance classes or anything.

Speaker 2 And then I projected that onto my children later and made them take every lesson that I could get a man. But I would, I put on a little shoe and started to do a dance routine.

Speaker 2 I had a whole dance routine made up. I had a whole thing and I danced for that poor man

Speaker 4 in your living room.

Speaker 2 In my living room. And I remember him stomping because you didn't have tattoos.
Yes.

Speaker 4 Yeah. But you're doing that because you instinctively felt that you needed to perform and you wanted an audience.
And this showed up over and over and over again in your life.

Speaker 2 Yes. And I went, I.

Speaker 4 When did you know or how did, what does that feel like?

Speaker 4 Because people always, you know, I speak at conferences and go around and have conversations with people and people are always like, how do you know your purpose?

Speaker 4 I say it's a feeling inside that won't let go of you. It's something that you,

Speaker 4 it's almost like the voice of God, but it's not like Moses in the burning bush. Right.
But it is an instinct, an intuition, a feeling, a knowingness that

Speaker 4 my life is not meant to be this, that there's something else.

Speaker 2 And I always felt that. And I heard Steve Harvey say one time that God put that in his imagination when he was 10.
The teacher wanted them to get up and say, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Speaker 2 And he said, I'm going to be on television. And she made fun of him.
And he said, I was so devastated, but because I knew this was, he said, I know God must have put this in my imagination.

Speaker 4 What 10-year-old says, I'm going to be on TV.

Speaker 2 And I've, and I was, I know I was nine or 10, and I would tell everybody, I'm going to Hollywood. I'm going to be on TV.
And I don't know where it came from.

Speaker 2 before that, but I always felt it in my heart. And you're right, it would not let go of me.
And it was a knowingness. And I remember, my high school friends remember me talking about it.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm going to Hollywood. And I'm going to be in this magazine.
And I'm going to do this. And then there were times when I would think, am I crazy? Nobody else is talking about this.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm like one of those little children on American Idol that thinks they can sing.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 but then I was this little bitty country girl that

Speaker 4 was cute.

Speaker 2 I was cute. And I could dazzle.
And we owned the grocery store in the little town. And my mama.

Speaker 4 And y'all had a Coke machine.

Speaker 2 We had a Coke machine, which was a big deal. And everybody loved that Coke machine.
And

Speaker 2 my little mama, Lucille, is fun and positive. And everybody wants to be around her.
And she'd always have on a

Speaker 4 skin a deer with a tennis ball. which I couldn't figure out how you even do that.
Even the description in the book. To skin a deer with a tennis ball.

Speaker 2 Yes. So we had the grocery store.

Speaker 2 And then my little daddy, everybody kept saying to my little daddy, he had worked at Kroger cutting up meat when they first got married and they had my sister in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Speaker 2 And then they moved back to Adams to run the grocery store for my grandparents. And everybody, you couldn't make any money on a little grocery store.
That was back then when you could,

Speaker 2 the farmers, when their crop money came in, they could pay off their bills. So they could charge all year.
That's right. And so you just couldn't make any money.

Speaker 4 Because everybody's on credit.

Speaker 2 Everybody's on credit.

Speaker 2 And everybody asked my dad to cut up their meat for them, their livestock, their beef and hogs and everything. And so he decided to open up a meat processing plant.

Speaker 2 And that's when Lucille could skin a deer with a golf ball. You put a golf ball on a string, they hang the deer up.

Speaker 2 I mean, I can't even talk about it because I'm not, I'm sissy, but she would, you take that golf ball on that string, go around, and it skins a deer in two minutes. Well, she could.
That's your mama.

Speaker 2 My little, very feminine, glamorous, darling mama,

Speaker 2 Lucille, but worked like a mule for me and my sister, both of them did, for us to go to college. And that's what they did.
They worked hard, manual labor, and in freezers, like there were freezers.

Speaker 2 But Lucille would take everybody's orders. She did all the counting.
I've got a very smart mama.

Speaker 4 So you knew, though, that something,

Speaker 4 you certainly felt inside yourself that something bigger was coming, but college, not so much.

Speaker 2 I really didn't. but everybody was going.

Speaker 2 And my little daddy said, it's either that or the military. I was raised near 101st airborne in Fort Hamill, Kentucky.
I was like, I can't go in the military. I don't even know how to mow.

Speaker 2 He wouldn't let us mow. I was afraid our feet would get cut off.
So I said, okay, I'll go to college. And I was dating William.
You talk about it.

Speaker 2 That was my high school boyfriend, and his family were farming people. And he was going to the University of Tennessee.
And he was like, of course, you got to go to college. He was so smart.

Speaker 2 And I, and so I followed him. I hate to even tell you that, Oprah, but I did.

Speaker 2 I followed him and I thought, I'm not going to stay here long, but in the back of my mind thinking, Hollywood, but I'm not going to stay here at UT.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm probably not going to even finish because we're going to raise tobacco and I'm going to can our food and I'm going to have six babies. And, you know, I don't know.
I was just loony.

Speaker 2 But I went to, I never, it never dawned on me to pack up everything I own and go to L.A. to go to Hollywood.
Like, I see here people do that.

Speaker 2 It never, I just didn't have the wherewithal or the confidence or to go to Second City in Chicago because I love Saturday Night Live. I just didn't know what you would do to get to Hollywood.

Speaker 4 You're waiting on the insurance man to come through so you can tap dance.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 4 So you, you, I was very moved by your story, your decision to return to school and finish college after divorcing so young because you were a divorcee.

Speaker 2 At 23.

Speaker 4 At 23, because Evan turned out to be a

Speaker 4 turned out to be a butthole.

Speaker 2 Right. Yes.

Speaker 4 And for those of you who are listening, when you say in the book that when the times were good, they were very, very good, intensely good. And then that thing starts to happen.

Speaker 4 It wants to separate you from your family and doesn't want other people calling you. And before long, the goods aren't as good as they used to be.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 4 And the bads are more frequent. And that's what happened with him.

Speaker 2 That's what happened. It was an abusive,

Speaker 2 it was physical, not as much as verbal. It was more verbal.

Speaker 2 but just chaotic. Yeah.
And I look back on it now and I think

Speaker 2 mental illness. You know, and I just,

Speaker 2 back then, you just think somebody's mean.

Speaker 2 But I think that's probably what it was.

Speaker 4 Didn't you run into him like 30-something years later?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he was still

Speaker 2 dredging up all the, I mean, just still an unrestful soul, just still disturbed. And it made me grieve for him because I thought.

Speaker 4 Did he apologize?

Speaker 2 He did. And he married and had a beautiful wife and little children.
And I hope that he was better to her, you know, maybe learn. I don't know.
But I did see him later and

Speaker 2 I had forgiven. I mean, it's like it never even happened to me.
I had forgiven and let that go. I really did.

Speaker 4 But you, after divorcing, you went back to school. It seemed like a defining moment for you.

Speaker 4 Where did you find the courage to do that?

Speaker 2 Well, I was working behind a makeup counter in the mall when I was married to him.

Speaker 2 And I remember them saying, we want to promote you. We want to give you your own counter.
And my heart was beating out of my body. And I was so tickled.
And she put on a piece of paper this time.

Speaker 4 We want to promote you and give you your own counter.

Speaker 2 Your own counter. And you would make a commission and all that.
And I was like, what? And she pushed that piece of paper with a total on it of my salary. And it was below poverty level.

Speaker 4 And you remember what the number was?

Speaker 2 $12,000. Okay.

Speaker 4 And that was going to be your promotion.

Speaker 2 And that was going to be promotion. Plus,

Speaker 2 you get a commission, but it wasn't one of the big lines. It wasn't land come.
Yeah. You know,

Speaker 2 so I just remember thinking, I mean, I was in a horrible marriage. I was scared out of my mind.
I would see these people working in this department store. I became friends with these.

Speaker 2 All these people that were working that were going to college, going to UT, and they had big futures ahead of them. And I just thought, thought, I cannot, this is not what I want.
I cannot do this.

Speaker 2 I've got to go back to school. And it was also like, he wanted me to quit.
I quit because of him. I had dropped out of college to get married.
Because of the FBI.

Speaker 2 And so the whole thing, I thought, I've got to go back. I want to do this for myself.
I'm going to do this for myself.

Speaker 2 And I said to my little daddy, Jimmy Fletcher, I go, I'm going to be 26 by the time I, because I had to redo all my.

Speaker 2 And he said, you're going to be 26 anyway.

Speaker 2 you might as well be educated yeah you were like I'm going to be 26 when I graduated from college he goes well you're going to be 26 if you don't so you might as well go I know and my little mom and daddy made sure that I paid all my bills and all that to live but they paid for my school they go we'll pay you for you to go back and I went back and you know and that's been one of the

Speaker 2 best things I ever did. That gave me so much confidence after being through in something and beat down.
That was, it meant so much to me to finish something I had started. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 and then the University of Tennessee you won't believe what all they do for me and they award me oh alumni of the year and I they just now awarded something that I will professional achievement award there's five of us in 2026 and my little mom and daddy will go and cry and then it'll make me feel bad because Chuck Morgan made straight A's and everything he did and I'm

Speaker 2 really hanging on but anyway

Speaker 2 and it means a lot to me and I love my school and that I went back and finished.

Speaker 4 Well, I love that.

Speaker 1 Hello, dear listeners. I hope you're enjoying my conversation with comedian, actress, and author, the hilarious Leanne Morgan.

Speaker 1 From small town Tennessee, where she raised three children, to selling jewelry in living rooms, then her first stand-up gig at a local sandwich shop, to a meteoric rise at Netflix in her mid-50s, Leanne Morgan is proof that your dreams can come true when the time is right.

Speaker 2 And I promise you, as God is my witness, he spoke to me, and it wasn't an audible, it was in my soul.

Speaker 2 He said,

Speaker 2 I, it's, there's a reason. Hold on, hold on.
There's a reason, Leanne.

Speaker 1 My hope is her story inspires you to keep pursuing whatever dream you may have for yourself. Stay with us.
More of Leanne's incredible story is next. Welcome back.

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Speaker 1 On this episode of the Oprah Podcast, I am joined by an extraordinary force of a woman who is the definition of manifesting your own dreams.

Speaker 1 Since she was five years old, comedian, actress, and author Leanne Morgan just knew she was going to Hollywood, but when? It took her five decades and never giving up to make that dream come true.

Speaker 1 This is Leanne's time, I'm telling y'all. She has a brand new sitcom based on her life on Netflix called Leanne, produced by TV genius Chuck Laurie.

Speaker 1 She's the author of her best-selling memoir, What in the World? That's what it's called, and has one of the most watched stand-up specials in Netflix history.

Speaker 1 Leanne has been married to her husband, Chuck Morgan, for 33 years. Together, they raised three children, and now they are grandparents.
Let's get back to our conversation where

Speaker 1 I found it hard to stop laughing and talking like Leanne.

Speaker 4 So let's talk about Chuck Morgan. Let's talk about you went through that range of bad men and bad decisions.
And after divorcing Evan, you'd made a decision that you are just not

Speaker 4 going to engage with another guy because you've got business to attend to. You're going to be your own woman.
And you've learned from that mistake. And along comes Chuck Morgan.

Speaker 2 Okay, Chuck Morgan, and I had shaved, not shaved my head, but I had cut my hair off.

Speaker 2 I just, I was in therapy. I always believed in therapy, loved therapy.
And

Speaker 2 I got my degree in child and family studies, crisis intervention counseling. So I thought, I don't need anything from anybody.
I don't want a date. I don't want any of that.

Speaker 2 And we were working at the same restaurant while I was trying to finish my degree, and he'd come back to get a master's in business. And

Speaker 2 very quiet, would not even hardly speak to me. I thought, who is this tall man that looks like a praying man?

Speaker 2 And I say that because he had lost some weight. and was on a he watches his weight and he was so thin he's 6'4 he looked like the rifleman Remember the rifleman? Who were the rifleman? Chuck Connors.

Speaker 2 Chuck Connors. Okay.
And he

Speaker 2 would just stand there and I'd be like,

Speaker 2 and I would be talking to people, waiting for my tables to be set. And he would,

Speaker 2 he fell in love with me and

Speaker 2 started, if I said to my girlfriends that I was waiting tables with, I love your Dooney and Burke purse, cute. There'd be a Dooney and Burke purse there with a big ribbon on it.

Speaker 2 If I said, I've got a test and I can somebody pick up my shift, he would pick up my shift and give me the money for it. It would say, I'm not taking this money.
I want you to have this money.

Speaker 4 No. This is when I knew

Speaker 4 he's the man, is that part of your shift duty was to go in and clean up the ladies' bathroom, right?

Speaker 2 Yes, which is like the shining.

Speaker 2 A woman's restaurant bathroom is like the shining. Awful.
The man's was not a big deal. You could clean the men all day long.

Speaker 4 Shining? Oh, horror.

Speaker 2 Women just spray and do and awful.

Speaker 2 And he would do all my side work every shift.

Speaker 4 He would surprise you. You'd go into the bathroom and thinking you had to clean it and it would be done.
I mean, what else do you want?

Speaker 2 I know. And

Speaker 2 he pursued me like old-time

Speaker 2 men would pursue and said, I'll take care of you and I'll never hurt you. And I, because I was like, no, I don't want anybody taking care of me.
You know, I had been through something hard.

Speaker 2 I got college.

Speaker 4 I got my degree. I can take care of myself.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't need, I don't need to.

Speaker 4 Also, I want to take just a quick look at my favorite moment from the Netflix special. This is my favorite.
I have lots of favorite moments in this Netflix special, but this one I love.

Speaker 2 Well, my husband and I met, and I was so cute, and I was little. I had on little breeches, and my thyroid was functioning,

Speaker 2 and I felt good. And he was so enthralled with me, and so in love with me, and pursued me, and bought me presents, and

Speaker 2 vacuumed out my car

Speaker 2 and did all kinds of things for me. And we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this year.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 And now I truly believe he would not pull me out of a burning vehicle.

Speaker 2 My concert promoter said, Lean, that's the ticket.

Speaker 2 That is the ticket. That is the ticket.
Because so many men, you know, you get in a relationship. You've been married 30 years, and

Speaker 2 I wonder if something was on fire, would he come and get me?

Speaker 4 I know, but I love that he cleaned out your car, the vacuuming of your car. I mean, I don't think men, any who does that anymore? I know.

Speaker 2 Who does that anymore for you? And he wants to take care of me, and he still wants to take care of me, but he's also bossy.

Speaker 4 But I will say this, there was a moment where he's bossy, protective, and you know, you say in the book, where would you be had he not been the kind of person that saved and wanted to protect and make sure you had things for the future.

Speaker 4 But he was doing that, saving for retirement when you all were 27 years old.

Speaker 2 27 years old. He is, I guess, an old soul.
I guess I would say that. Honest, because he has worried about that and worried about these girls' weddings when they were little.

Speaker 2 Like, I've got to pay for weddings and I've got to, that is his role. He wants to be our provider and take care of us.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 the most, the moment that shows us the most who he is is you're on the way to the hospital. You're on the way to the hospital.
I think this was with Charlie, right?

Speaker 2 He drives like a maniac normally. He still does.
I mean, he's just an aggressive driver. And he was going, I don't know, 20 miles an hour.
I go, what are you doing? I was, my water had broken.

Speaker 4 Your water had broken.

Speaker 2 I was holding on to the dash. I was hurting so bad.
And he said, if we can wait until midnight, after midnight, they won't charge us.

Speaker 2 today for the for the hospital room. It won't go on the insurance or go against, I don't even know how insurance works because he's always taking care of everything.
Yes, that's what he did to me.

Speaker 2 And then, and I was like, so I'm driving slow so we can get to the hospital after midnight.

Speaker 4 So we don't have to pay for today.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Oh my goodness. I know.
And he would do it a day. He would do it today.
If I was going to

Speaker 2 go into birth a day, he would do it again. He likes to save money.
He would, if he flew out here today, I bet guarantee he'd be sitting by the toilet and coach.

Speaker 2 He'd say, we don't need to be spending that money. But yeah, and I got to the hospital and my baby was breached and I didn't know it and I had to have a C-section.
And

Speaker 2 yeah, everything turned out okay.

Speaker 4 But I also love the moment that

Speaker 4 you,

Speaker 4 it was a friend that called and said, because you were going through challenging times and they said you could sell jewelry.

Speaker 4 This is what I want to say to everybody,

Speaker 4 whatever you're going through in your life, nothing is lost or wasted. Nothing is ever lost or wasted.
Everything that's happening is leading to something else that was meant to happen.

Speaker 4 And so the moment the friend called and asked you to sell jewelry, you thought you were just going to be selling jewelry.

Speaker 4 Tell us about the moment you were selling jewelry in your living room and you made the woman pee on herself. Okay.

Speaker 2 All right. I, you know, I had married Chuck Morgan by now.
He had had pursued me at the University of Tennessee while he was getting his MBA.

Speaker 2 Then he bought a used mobile home business in foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. When I got up there, I thought, what what have I done? I'm from rural, but not that rural.

Speaker 2 I mean, there were, you know, that was a whole different can of worms. But anyway, I had my first baby.

Speaker 4 A whole different can of rural, that was, yes.

Speaker 2 I had my first baby, Charlie, and I wanted to stay at home with him and nurse and stay at home.

Speaker 2 But we didn't have, I mean, Chuck was 26 years old, had a business and, you know, had employees and payroll and all that.

Speaker 2 And I had my degree, but I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom all the time thinking I'm going to Hollywood. Anyway, so she says, why don't you sell this jewelry? You can stay home with Charlie.

Speaker 2 Chuck can take care of the baby at night. You can meet friends in the Appalachia Mountains because I was so isolated.

Speaker 2 And you can make a little money and you can wear this cute jewelry and it'll be fun for you. And I go, okay,

Speaker 2 I don't care a thing in the world about jewelry. I don't know.

Speaker 2 But I thought, okay, you know, like Tupperware or Mary Kaye. And they gave me a spiel that you do, you know, and

Speaker 2 selling the jewelry. And so I started selling.

Speaker 4 14-carat gold necklace, blah, blah, blah, da-da.

Speaker 2 Well, and it wasn't 14-carat gold, but, you know, the earrings were around $19.99. Okay.

Speaker 2 It was costume.

Speaker 2 We weren't supposed to call it that, but. Okay.
Okay. And I schlepped this big case and then put it out there.
And then, you know, women in the South, somebody'd have a coconut cake, a dip, a brownie.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I was supposed to tell this big spiel about, oh, you can put a clip earring on the top of your pump and change the look of your shoe and do all that.

Speaker 2 And by then, I was pregnant with my second baby, Maggie, and I was,

Speaker 2 Lord, I had brainstormed

Speaker 2 hemorrhoids. You could have stopped in your shoe.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 All that. And they told us, wear as much jewelry as you can out the grocery store so somebody will ask you about your jewelry.
And I said, but we all look like Mr. T.

Speaker 2 I mean, we all had on way too much. But anyway,

Speaker 2 I started doing that, and I developed some of my first material that I ever worked in, a comedy club in those little living rooms with, you think about it, my demographic sitting right there in my, like my own little comedy club.

Speaker 2 Everybody was young and well, I mean, they were all ages, but there were school teachers, people at this, at the medical school,

Speaker 2 they're raising children, they're pregnant, they're breastfeeding, all that.

Speaker 4 And they're just coming to your house to get some relief.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I would go to somebody's house and then they started, people thought i was funny and so they would say you need to book a party with her because you know everybody avoids those parties everybody's like lord so-and-so's having a cabby we're gonna have to go and buy something but people wanted to go because they thought i was fun and um the company oh well but let me tell you about her pee-peeing so one night i was telling some big tale and carmen mcdonald who works at my eye doctor and i love her with all my heart i still see her all the time she laughed so hard that she pee peed on Janet Williams.

Speaker 4 Or she spit out her tea. Didn't she spit out her tea?

Speaker 2 She spit, pee.

Speaker 2 Everybody had to get a towel blot.

Speaker 2 But I'm telling y'all, I knew that moment. I thought, I'm killing up there.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be, I need to be a stand-up. That's what I need to be doing.
I need to be doing a stand-up. But are you

Speaker 4 killing them? But am I selling jewelry?

Speaker 2 I was selling a buckload of jewelry and I was booking so far in advance that the company noticed and asked me to start speaking at their big things about how I was booking so far in advance.

Speaker 2 But that was terrible because I really couldn't say, well, I'm up here doing stand-up and I'm fun and I'm really not talking about Jory.

Speaker 2 I'm talking about my hemorrhoids and Chuck Morgan didn't hear the baby cry in the night and I want to kill him, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 But I remember saying to people, which was so arrogant, but I would say to those women, you can book a party with me now or you can see me in Las Vegas later.

Speaker 2 Because I knew, I thought, I'm going to, I'm going to be, I'm going to be big time. And those little women would, you know, get a piece of paper and write down they wouldn't have a party.

Speaker 2 I stayed busy, covered up, doing these parties.

Speaker 4 Okay, so the big breakthrough, though, was it the big breakthrough, the Mike Sandwich shop?

Speaker 2 Wasn't that it? Yes. Okay, so

Speaker 2 this little man in Morristown, Tennessee,

Speaker 2 came to the Kiwanis Capers. Okay, so

Speaker 2 in my Sunday school class, all these darling, we had a wonderful Sunday school class. We all had our babies together and we were all crazy about each other and it was so sweet.

Speaker 2 And one of the husbands said, Lee, and I'm in the Kiwanis Capers, like Rotary. Yeah.
Can you come and MC, because you're a ham.

Speaker 2 Can you, and I've been selling this jewelry and they thought I was a cut-up in Sunday school. So he said, would you MC this Kiwanis Capers? And you know, nobody else want to do it.
And I was like,

Speaker 2 I'm on fire. I'm putting on a girdle, a heel.
I'm there. Yes, I will do it.

Speaker 4 Gonna put a clip on your shoe,

Speaker 2 an an earring on my pumps.

Speaker 4 On your pumps, and you're gonna change the look of your shoe.

Speaker 2 Yes. And then, so little Mike that owned a sandwich shop and an oil change place

Speaker 2 said afterwards, Lynn, I have bands that come to my sandwich shop. Would you ever want to do stand-up? That's the first time I'd ever really, somebody said stand-up.

Speaker 2 Even though before Chuck Morgan and I had married, we came out here to California to see my sister. She lived in Huntington Beach, and I got to go to the comedy store.

Speaker 2 He said, where do you want to go? go? And I said, I want to ride around in that hearse and see where people got murdered in Hollywood. And I won an idea, and I had a ball.

Speaker 2 And Chuck said, this is the most morbid thing I've ever. And how do you know that Bugsy Siegel got shot through his front door? He said, you've got a lot of knowledge that's not, you know, necessary.

Speaker 2 But anyway.

Speaker 2 So we went through that and I said, I want to go to the famous comedy store. And my heart beat out of my body.
And I had a physical response. I mean, I thought, this is what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 2 You're being in the comedy store.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this is what I'm doing inside the comedy store.

Speaker 2 Yes. And this watching them on stage, I thought, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
But anyway, so,

Speaker 2 so,

Speaker 2 yeah, little Mike said, do you want to do? And I go, okay. And he goes, can you do 45? And I went, okay, 45 minutes, which was.

Speaker 2 Crazy. And I should have never agreed to that.

Speaker 2 It was like, you know, people get up and do an open mic for three minutes. The first time I ever got on stage and called it stand-up, I did 45 minutes.

Speaker 4 And Mike's sandwich shop.

Speaker 2 Yes. And I'm sure it sucked.
And I'm worried, I still get up at four o'clock in the morning thinking, did somebody film that? Is that going to come out somewhere?

Speaker 2 But anyway, there was a big window in front of the sandwich shop. And he said, I'll give you the door money

Speaker 2 and I'll make money off the sandwiches. And Chuck Morgan would drive with three babies by then, I had three.

Speaker 2 in a minivan back and forth and people would say chuck's driving behind you because it was a little town everybody knew us and i had to go to an ear nose and throat doctor that day because I could not move my neck because I was so, I thought something was terrible wrong with me.

Speaker 2 He looked like Tim McGraw, by the way. And I said, something is bad wrong with me.
Do I have cancer? And he said, I think you are so scared about,

Speaker 2 because I said, I'm doing this thing tonight. He said, I think you are scared.

Speaker 2 I was nerves.

Speaker 4 I'd be scared stiff.

Speaker 2 I was scared staff. Wow.
Once I got on stage, I was fine.

Speaker 2 And I had a little bit of a...

Speaker 4 You said the moment you stood in front of that microphone, you write, that the moment you walked in and you got in front of the microphone, the nerves in your neck relaxed and

Speaker 2 you were fine. And it felt like home.
It felt like, okay, girl.

Speaker 4 I know exactly what that feeling is because I'd been doing news in Baltimore and had gotten removed from the news and they didn't know what to do with me and they put me on a talk show.

Speaker 4 And the very first day I did that talk show, it felt like coming home. I felt like, ah, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And you knew that too.

Speaker 2 I knew it. I knew it.
And in the middle of all that.

Speaker 4 That was the first time you got paid, like physically paid.

Speaker 2 I got paid. And he said, can you do it again? And so I would do it, I think, once a month.
And it was kind of like a little one-woman show. And people, it would sell out every time.

Speaker 2 And then, but in the middle of all that, there were, there was upheaval. Like, you know, Chuck was trying to figure out a young man had this business.

Speaker 2 He had all these employees and back and forth where

Speaker 2 we moved to Myrtle Beach for a little while. His dad took over the business, so he thought he wanted to do something else.

Speaker 2 We came back to Morristown and

Speaker 2 we didn't have any money and he bought a

Speaker 2 his dad, we had, we always had this business called Referred Co where you refurbish used mobile homes. And his dad had a double wide that had been set on fire.
Somebody was going to repo it.

Speaker 2 Had been set on fire. You could see black marks from smoke.
When somebody's about to lose their home, a lot of times I'll take a hammer and like knock the sinks out and stuff like that. God love them.

Speaker 2 Okay, so Chuck said, just trust me, Leanne,

Speaker 2 I want to move us back. I'm going to work for this big mobile home manufacturing company that's now in Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett Company.

Speaker 2 But he said, just trust me, I'm going to put us in this double wide that's been set on fire

Speaker 2 out in the middle of this lot.

Speaker 2 But I'll be able to turn it and we'll make a bunch of money off of it. I'm going to flip it.
And then we're going to, we'll buy a, because we had had a beautiful home.

Speaker 2 I was a member of a country club for the first time in my life before all this happened. I took my little children up there and they, and we had a pool because I was raised there.

Speaker 2 I had to swim in a pond with Converse high-top tennis shoes on because there were turtles in it. Anyway, I had a pool.
I've had this wonderful life. And it was.
It was a wonderful life.

Speaker 2 And then he decided some little upheaval in his career and what he wanted to do.

Speaker 4 So you all had moved and you came back.

Speaker 2 So you

Speaker 4 lost that house because you had to go to the house.

Speaker 2 We sold that house and sold everything so he could go and do this new venture. Then we got there and realized this is what he needs to be doing.
He took the LSAT, was going to go to law school.

Speaker 2 I found I was pregnant with my third baby.

Speaker 2 He said, I can't do that. We got too many babies.

Speaker 2 So we came back. He put me in this double wide.

Speaker 4 What did you do when you first saw that double wide?

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 and nothing against people having to live in manufactured homes but I had I mean it was I was devastated I thought and my little mom and dadstairs right because it didn't have backstairs and he owned a mobile home company where he had stairs in a field a million of them so I don't know if he was just overwhelmed but I would have to like throw my babies up in it and I was being pregnant and had to get my leg up in it and then the he put they put indoor carpet in it and that had been out and had been weathered, you know, rained on and stuff.

Speaker 2 So we all had mold and allergies. My sister at the same time was getting married to this hoop-de-doo man.

Speaker 2 And I remember it was when Princess Di had passed away because I remember sitting on the couch and watching that Princess Di had passed away and Beth was planning her wedding to this hoop-de-doo man.

Speaker 4 We all remember that, isn't it?

Speaker 2 And that's when I was in that double wide.

Speaker 2 But I remember getting locked out of the double wide. It's in the book about, I got locked out of the double wide.
I was big pregnant with TS, my baby.

Speaker 2 I had to walk down the road with two babies and two car seats. And so this little woman could drive me to Morristown to go.
I went to church on Wednesday night because there was a meal.

Speaker 2 And all my friends were there and Miss Betty cooked and it was social for me.

Speaker 4 And I was so, you know, I so- So we moved out here in the country.

Speaker 2 We moved me out there with the double wide was out in the country and I had to ride with this God lover, pitiful woman that said the F word in front of my children and smoked generic cigarettes that smelled so bad.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she gave me a a ride, God love her. And I was in this little bitty car that the floor was rusted out, and I could see the highway under my feet.

Speaker 2 And I had to propp my feet up on this so that my feet wouldn't get torn on the road. And my little children were holding hands in the back.
And Charlie said, Nice car you got here. He was about three.

Speaker 2 And I drove up. I mean, I remember riding down the road and saying,

Speaker 2 I mean, I just felt so like, what in the, how did my life turn to this?

Speaker 4 How am I in a rusted artist?

Speaker 2 How did I get here? And I prayed about it. I said, God,

Speaker 2 what have I done? I know I did some things in the 80s I shouldn't have, but what did I do to get this? And I promise you, as God is my witness, he spoke to me, and it wasn't an audible.

Speaker 2 It's in my soul, God said,

Speaker 2 just hold on, Lynn.

Speaker 2 I got you. This is all going to, this story is going to be told.

Speaker 2 There's a reason for all of this. This is a total.
I had a feeling you had.

Speaker 2 I had a feeling.

Speaker 4 In, in that car where you can see it.

Speaker 2 I felt like he spoke to me. And, like I say, it wasn't like Morgan Freeman speaking to me.
It was in my soul.

Speaker 2 He said,

Speaker 2 there's a reason.

Speaker 2 Hold on. There's a reason, Leanne.
And I was like, okay,

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 2 But I've had several of those moments in my life.

Speaker 2 And now I can look back and I just know, you know, when you think your gut, whatever you call it, I feel like that's God speaking to me. And he was with me.

Speaker 4 You call them God moments. I call them God moments, God winks.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Coming up, listener, Leanne Morgan shares the clip that went viral the moment she knew her career was finally taking off at 54 years old.

Speaker 1 It happened to be the exact same day she dropped off her youngest child to live on her own. Talk about divine timing.

Speaker 2 Within a week, comedy clubs all over the United States, I was selling out one-nighters.

Speaker 2 I couldn't even cash the checks.

Speaker 1 From breastfeeding, going through menopause, and even sex after age 50, Leanne explains why she believes her comedy hit a nerve. More with Leanne Morgan right after this break, y'all.
Welcome back.

Speaker 1 Comedian, actress, and author Leanne Morgan is almost 60 years old and is finally living the life she dreamed about since she was a little girl. The road to success wasn't always easy.

Speaker 1 Leanne got married, raised three children, and sold jewelry out of living rooms using it as practice for her stand-up.

Speaker 1 She didn't hit it big until the exact day she dropped off her youngest child to live on her own. Today, Leanne has one of the most viewed comedy specials on Netflix.

Speaker 1 It's called I'm Every Woman, and she has her own sitcom, Leanne, also on Netflix, plus a must-read memoir appropriately titled, What in the World? She sells out comedy shows all over the country.

Speaker 1 I'm taking some friends soon to go see her, and I can't wait to see her live. She really is living proof of someone who never gave up and manifested her own dreams.
Let's get back to our conversation.

Speaker 4 Wasn't there a moment where you thought, okay, maybe I'm just going to throw in the towel?

Speaker 2 Yes, it was my early 50s, and it really was not going well. And I was working a lot, but it wasn't the work I wanted.

Speaker 2 It really, I just knew in my heart, this is not, I mean, I wanted to be like Jim Gaffick and Nate Borghatzi, all these people I admired. And I thought, this is not, these are horrible gigs.

Speaker 2 I'm staying in a hotel on the side of the interstate. I don't feel safe.
I mean, I just thought, I just had it. And I broke down.
We were at dinner at a restaurant.

Speaker 4 Before you tell that story, but when you were 42, like out of a fairy tale, a Hollywood producer called, right? Yes. Saying he wanted to create a sitcom based on your life.
Yes.

Speaker 4 Pitching you as the next Roseanne, right? You flew to Los Angeles for meetings. And then what happened?

Speaker 2 The Writer-Strike hit, we sold it to ABC before we got out of the parking lot.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the Writer-Strike hit, that first strike hit when

Speaker 2 like then reality show became social. Reality shows came, yeah.
And they said, it's over. And one day they go, oh, sorry, Leanne, it's over.
And I mean, I was flying back and forth.

Speaker 2 They were starting to talk about casting.

Speaker 4 I remember that summer of the writer's strike, and that's when,

Speaker 4 you know, all the reality shows started because there were no writers.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.
And here I was in the middle. I was in Knoxville.
I started out. Chuck had, we had been moved to San Antonio to be over South Texas for his company.

Speaker 2 I started really doing stand-up in Austin, Texas, and that's how I got that first deal. And then we moved back to Knoxville and I got the television deal.

Speaker 2 And then I got after that, I went into a, I feel like I went into a deep depression. That was my first rodeo with Hollywood.

Speaker 2 It did not happen and I was on this high and then it was over and it was just like nobody cares anymore. I couldn't get booked.

Speaker 2 Chuck brought me a little beagle from Ogden, Utah. I'd love a dog.
Wanted to

Speaker 2 make me feel better.

Speaker 2 I just remember thinking, it's over. I mean, nothing's ever going to happen.
So all the time I was living out in Knoxville, raising three children,

Speaker 2 even if I wasn't one of the cool kids, I call them in L.A. and New York and all the people going and doing, I still, God would send me these things that would keep me going.

Speaker 2 Even if they didn't make it, I would think.

Speaker 4 What do you think now, though, looking back, Leanne? What was God, the life force, trying to tell you or teach you? Because

Speaker 4 when things don't work out, sometimes they don't work out for the best reason for you for the future.

Speaker 2 Because if it had worked out, then you would have to leave your children or move your children. I would have had to, they tell me, they go, your husband cannot quit his job.

Speaker 2 He needs to stay there with the children. You need to

Speaker 2 live away from your children to see if this is going to make it. It most likely will get canceled.
So he doesn't need to quit his job. I mean, it was just like a crapshoot.

Speaker 2 And I was so caught up in it that I was willing. I thought, okay, well, we'll figure it out.
And now I look back on it and I think, oh my gosh, that was God's protection over me.

Speaker 2 I could not have lived away from my children. Cho was an executive working, traveling all over the United States.

Speaker 2 There's no way it could have happened. But, you know, I was caught up in it and I was caught up in the,

Speaker 2 you know, the, could I be famous? Could this, you know, be, I could finally be a sitcom star.

Speaker 2 This is going to be da, da, da, because I was a working comedian and that was, you know, a dream of a lot of comedians.

Speaker 2 And, but I look back on it and that God wanted me to stay in Knoxville, Tennessee, raise these children, have relatable material for when I was in my 50s and this blew up.

Speaker 2 And that's why all these women in the United States of America can relate to me. And why I started talking about perimenopause.
Don't get a special in until I'm in my late mid-late 50s.

Speaker 4 So when you were 54, actually, it was about five years ago, you had no website and you had decided to spend some money and hire two young men, right?

Speaker 2 Two young social media guys.

Speaker 4 See if they could, on social media, boost, you know, your clips or whatever.

Speaker 2 So I could sell a ticket.

Speaker 4 So you could sell a ticket somewhere. And they posted a clip of your stand-up call.
I saw this. When you go to concerts with old people.
I love this. It went viral.
Let's watch this short clip. Woo!

Speaker 2 Okay, let me tell you, have y'all been to concerts lately with old people that

Speaker 2 are older than I am? So we go to Deaf Leopard and Journey, and everybody there is our age.

Speaker 2 And everybody's worried about the snack bar. First of all, and I was too.
And every once in a while, somebody would stand up and

Speaker 2 then they sat back down.

Speaker 2 I thought, isn't it funny how things have changed since I went to concerts when I was 20? Everybody was walking out like this because everybody had inflammation in their feet.

Speaker 2 trying to get to their car.

Speaker 2 And it was like 10 o'clock. I thought, what are we doing out there?

Speaker 2 What are we doing?

Speaker 2 We got to get home.

Speaker 2 We got to get in the million.

Speaker 2 That was the first time I'd ever told that story somebody got it on film. Wow.
We had just, I had just taken Chuck Morgan to go see Death Leberton Journey.

Speaker 2 And some little guy filmed it for me and I gave it to those boys, those social media guys. And I thought, I'm going to give this three months because it was expensive.

Speaker 2 I thought, I'm going to give this three months. If nothing happens, then that's God telling me that I need to open a hardware store.

Speaker 2 In Knoxville, and I'll dazzle there. And I'll be a grandmama.
I knew I was going to have grandbabies. Yeah.
And I thought, I had a child. I'll dazzle at the hardware store.
I'll dazzle.

Speaker 2 I'll get a cheese wheel

Speaker 2 because my people, you know, that's my past.

Speaker 2 I love a grocery store. I don't have licosense over a grocery store.
Cheese wheel, slice my own bacon, and have canning goods, you know? Yeah. I thought, I'll just, in rocking chairs, and I'll dazzle.

Speaker 2 And he said, you have lost your mind. Chunks, I was telling, I told him all this.
I go, I'll just go. Hardware store.
He went, Link in, you've lost your mind.

Speaker 2 But anyway, I gave these three, these boys that's money, and I thought, it last-ditch effort and then I'll let it go. I'll be able to let it go and let this let go.

Speaker 2 And that was the day they released that, the day that my baby child, we moved her into an apartment in Brooklyn to go to school for makeup for television and film, who now is my makeup artist and is on my show and all that.

Speaker 2 But we moved her in. She'd gone to college and then she said she wanted to do that.
We moved her in

Speaker 2 and I looked on my phone and, well, I think one of those boys called me and said, Leanne, something's happening. Like, I don't know if you're seeing this.

Speaker 2 And you could just see thousands and thousands and thousands of views.

Speaker 2 People start, they watch that and could relate to that because who doesn't go to a concert and see Fall Cat and are worried out of their mind.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, everybody's got plantarphasiitis. And then they started looking to see what else I had done.
So then all the views on all my other things had gone up.

Speaker 2 And I had not done anything on my social media. I had babies, you know, children.
I put up pictures of my dogs and stuff.

Speaker 2 And it started blowing up. And I mean, within, I don't even, I wish I had journaled it all.
I think within a week, people were calling trying to get me in comedy clubs all over the United States.

Speaker 2 And it had been like four months before that. I could not sell a ticket.
The improvs, I'd done a couple of improvs in Florida and they were like, we love her.

Speaker 2 She doesn't get drunk and fight in the parking lot, but we're not having her back. She can't sell a ticket.

Speaker 2 And I was just devastated.

Speaker 2 Okay. And within a week, comedy clubs all over the United States I was selling out one-nighters

Speaker 2 I couldn't even cash the checks Chuck said you're like a drug dealer in your backpack you got all this money floating around I was going from town to town to sold-out shows all over the United States oh my goodness it was crazy it was just like somebody turned a light on but I tell you what happened I found my audience all those years when I would be talking about my every hour new hour I would come up with was what I was going through in my life.

Speaker 2 So So birthing, breastfeeding, all that. Then elementary school, middle school, sports, kids.

Speaker 4 Because you just take your comedy from whatever's happening in life.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I'm a storyteller. That's right.
And then,

Speaker 2 and I would think the whole, all that 20 years where nothing was happening, I would think, I know there's mamas out here and women that are going to Weight Watchers and are.

Speaker 2 and are fighting their weight and they're and they're feeling the same way.

Speaker 2 How do I get to them? I didn't know how to get to them.

Speaker 2 And then through social media, through those, when I hired those, it was the best thing. The manager I had at the time said, you can't afford it.
You don't need to be doing it.

Speaker 2 And I thought, I'm going to do it anyway. I know what I'm talking about because I would see Jim Gavkin and all these people I admired.
They had them. And I thought, that's the new TV, radio,

Speaker 2 all that. And

Speaker 2 I took a gamble on myself. And I invested in myself, which was crazy that I waited that long to invest in myself, but that's what I did.

Speaker 2 If I made money in gigs through the years, I'd buy these children uniforms and get their hair cut.

Speaker 2 And so this was fun.

Speaker 4 You were always spending money on everybody.

Speaker 2 I was spending money. I had my friend did my website for me out of the goodness of her heart.
It was, you know, pitiful. But, I mean, she just did the best she could, and I begged her to do it.

Speaker 2 I never, I had maybe two headshots in 20 years, which was stupid.

Speaker 4 So, yeah. So, and then it just took off.

Speaker 1 Coming up, why the legendary TV producer Chuck Laurie traveled all the way to Leanne's front porch in Tennessee to pitch her the chance to make her own sitcom based on her life.

Speaker 1 We'll talk about her new Netflix show. You gotta watch that show.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 1 I am back with the hilarious,

Speaker 1 hilarious Leanne Morgan, who joined me in the tea house for the Oprah podcast to talk about this epic moment she's having in her career.

Speaker 1 Let's get back to our conversation that had me laughing out loud for real.

Speaker 4 Tell me about Chuck Laurie coming to your house.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 I got big tours. Once they saw me selling out in clubs, I got the first big theater tour, the big panty tour.
I called it the big panty tour because I realized I was talking about my panties a lot.

Speaker 2 And I like a good, comfortable panty. I've done a hundred cities.
This is winding it down.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 And people ask me all the time, why'd you name this Big Panty Tour? And I tell people, I like big panties.

Speaker 2 Big Panties say to me, freedom.

Speaker 2 Chuck Lori flies to my home. He comes to see me with Buck Lori.

Speaker 4 The most famous producer of sitcoms and television. Yes.

Speaker 2 He sat and held my new grandbaby. On the back porch, we had lunch.
I still worry that that bread was too hard.

Speaker 2 You know, southern women, they want people to eat and enjoy their food.

Speaker 2 Anyway, he came with my manager, and

Speaker 2 he sat there and said the sweetest things to me, opera. Like, and I know you've read this books.
You've read every book in the United States of America. But that book about 10,000 hours.
Yes.

Speaker 2 He said, Lynn, I can tell you've put in, you've done that 10,000 hours. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 He said, you have mastered this, and you are.

Speaker 2 I wish that we had recorded it. The things he said to me and for me to be, you know, validated.

Speaker 4 You were validated.

Speaker 2 Validated.

Speaker 2 You know, because in Comedy Central had never wanted me. You know, they were the big thing.
Yes, yeah. Never wanted me.
I got so many no's. I didn't get to go to festivals.

Speaker 2 Very rarely would they let me go to Montreal.

Speaker 4 And I'm sure a lot of people were put off by your accent, right? They were like, who's going to relate to you? And women have it tougher anyway.

Speaker 2 Tougher anyway. And then I was talking, I'm clean.
I was talking about

Speaker 2 having babies in my stomach and weight Watchers. You're not cursing, you're not, yes.
And they wanted edgy. There were times, you know, it goes through trends.
They

Speaker 2 wanted edgy edgy. Yeah.
And I was able to moment.

Speaker 4 Weight is always. One of my one of my funniest lines that you write about in the book is going on Weight Watchers

Speaker 4 nine separate times and losing seven pounds.

Speaker 2 I've done Weight Watchers nine times

Speaker 2 and I've lost lost seven pounds.

Speaker 2 It's because I don't follow it.

Speaker 2 And I know it works. I really do.
I know it works. When you first start, you're so hungry that you could eat the wallpaper off the wall.

Speaker 2 But I so I try to stay within my points.

Speaker 2 All right, my sister will go on it every time I will, and she lives in Clarksville, Tennessee, and she'll call me and she'll say, it's noon, and I've eaten all my points.

Speaker 2 I've just, I've got the app. I've got the app right now, and every once in a while I'll go back and get on the board.
I was on the board. I was on the board.
Oh, I know. I thought, I know.

Speaker 2 We all know.

Speaker 2 And you were the one we all wanted to do it for and make it happen for. But I would get my friends, we would go have a ball.
First week, lose water weight. It was our fault.
It wasn't Weight Watchers.

Speaker 2 Weight Watchers works, but you got to do it. You got to do it.

Speaker 2 My mama's done Weight Watchers. My sister will say, she said to me recently, are you doing something and you're not wanting to tell me? Is it Weight Watchers?

Speaker 2 I go, if I was doing Weight Watchers, I'd tell you. Why would I keep that from you? No, I'm shooting a sitcom and I'm scared to dance.
And I've lost a little bit of weight.

Speaker 2 But, oh, but yeah, Weight Watchers meetings to me were so fun. And you would hear them talk about, you know, what's your travel snack.
And, you know, somebody said string mozzarella.

Speaker 2 And then somebody said a little pack of nuts. And then a little woman behind me said,

Speaker 2 or or somebody said boiled eggs. Take two boiled eggs in a Ziploc bag.
And she said, you don't want to get in a car with me after I've eaten two boiled eggs. I mean, I just thought it was comedy gold.

Speaker 2 I thought it's like being at your own comedy club because everybody's, all these women are like, there's fat-free chocolate chipmen ice cream at the Walmart off a Harriman exit.

Speaker 2 You know, and everybody's like, trying to get out so they can go buy it.

Speaker 2 But I loved it. And I still have the app and I'll do it.

Speaker 4 And the fact that you did it nine times, nine times.

Speaker 2 I've never been able to stick with things.

Speaker 2 My mama loves a diet. My sister can do a diet and I would try, but I've never stuck to anything.
And I'm sitting up here. Now you ought to see my fanny on TV.

Speaker 4 This is the thing. I started watching your new series, Leanne, on Netflix.
They sent it to me. And you are so

Speaker 4 good.

Speaker 4 You were born for this. You were born for this, Leanne.
You were born for this. Listen,

Speaker 4 you're going to be with the greats because your comedic timing and your ability to tell stories. I just love the fact that it is based on your family and it doesn't even feel like you're acting.

Speaker 4 It feels like you're the Leanne that's in front of me right now.

Speaker 2 Well, thank you. I hope that I do think that these wonderful writers have gotten my voice.
And that's hard. I am a Southern Christian Walman.

Speaker 2 You know, from Tennessee, it'd be like if I went to write for a Russian family in New Jersey, you know, I wouldn't know that, but they have, they have really, I feel like, have, they've gotten my voice.

Speaker 2 I'm a writer, executive producer.

Speaker 4 So you must be, because as I was watching it, I said to my producer, Leanne must be writing this herself.

Speaker 2 Oh, honey, no. But I tweak.
Okay. They, they give me all the room to tweak, and this is how I would say it.
And this is, I don't like this way, this is going. Can we do it this way?

Speaker 4 Mom and Daddy. I love all the scenes with your mom and daddy.
So it's your mom and daddy and

Speaker 2 a husband that has walked off and left me after 34 years. So Chuck Morgan and I are still together.
My little daddy, somebody told him on Facebook that we were getting a divorce.

Speaker 2 And I said, no, daddy, it's like Beverly Hillbillies. You know, it's not true.
But so it is not based on my real family, but I do think it has my essence. Yes.

Speaker 2 Because I do think it would be weird to be based on my real family. I think I would be too protective of my children and my...

Speaker 4 Some of the stories are taken out of your life situation yes yes you know so what do you want to say about it i mean the fact that now

Speaker 2 what i mean what in the world what in the world what in the world and to get a sitcom on today in television when everybody says nobody's doing sitcom nobody's doing and and and we i we went in there to sell that little chuck lorry and me and i say little chuck way more than everybody else in the room

Speaker 2 and and they they said we'll do it with whatever will because they want him so badly and then they put put these unbelievable writers with me that have had this wonderful track record and then this cast around me.

Speaker 2 And what I want to say about...

Speaker 4 I had a kissing scenes with Tim.

Speaker 2 I had a kissing scene. Oh, my Lord.
Ompra.

Speaker 2 You talking about somebody that has kept his weight down.

Speaker 2 And on the weeks he's...

Speaker 2 On the weeks he's there, I lose weight because we have to kiss and I don't want to burp in his mouth. And I eat altoids and I get weak as water.
But anyway, precious, precious guy.

Speaker 2 Sweet and a pro and made me feel comfortable when I have to kiss and do all that and rig them a row. What are you doing? I'm getting undressed.

Speaker 4 That usually happens at the end of the date.

Speaker 4 I can't go. This was a mistake.
Carol, you're going to have to call him and tell him I'm sick. We'll just try again in a few years.

Speaker 4 He's an FBI agent. He's going to know I'm lying.
You're right he is because he's so so good at his job and he's so good looking.

Speaker 2 You are too.

Speaker 4 Wait till he tries your meatloaf.

Speaker 4 I got that recipe from Southern Living. It's not even mine.

Speaker 2 I'm a fraud. But I hope people think it, I hope they like it and I hope I think it's got wonderful jokes.
I think it's got heart.

Speaker 4 I think it has a lot of heart, and I think we need to laugh now, laugh about ourselves and laugh about our situations and our families. And I think it is so heartwarming.

Speaker 4 I always think comedians doing stand-up for so many years,

Speaker 4 I've seen a lot of life, all of the different cities and as you were saying, hotels by the freeway.

Speaker 4 And that that brings you kind of a world experience, don't you think?

Speaker 2 I think so. I think all of that, and plus I got to have both.
I got to raise my children. And when I did the movie with Little Reese Witherspoon and Will Farrell,

Speaker 2 she said to me every day on that set, Leanne, you got to raise your own children. You really got to do both.
And this happened in me in my 50s. Yes, did I want to be younger and thinner?

Speaker 2 Yes, did I think, you know, I had a lot of heartache, a lot of no's and rejection. But how, what a blessing that this happened to me.
I got my children grown. They don't need me like they did.

Speaker 2 And I'm able to do this. I could not have gone out on the road and do a tour like I'm doing with little children.
I couldn't have. I mean, I do 100 cities in a tour.

Speaker 2 The tour I'm on now is called the Just Getting Started Tour, and it's 200 cities.

Speaker 2 Wow. And the Just Kitty Started, I know.

Speaker 4 Did Chuck Morgan come with you? Because I think y'all see each other?

Speaker 2 Not a lot, because he's still working a big job. He's over a division for that Berkshire Hathaway company, and they need him.

Speaker 2 The kid and say, are you a flight risk? Are you leaving Chuck? But he wants to see that through because he's a loyal.

Speaker 2 He loves his company and wants to see that division through, make sure it's all right before he leaves.

Speaker 2 And also, oh, I don't want him to come on the road with me because I'll be in a hotel room and I'll have to do it.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, and then he's eating nuts and chomping and watching a basketball game. And that's my time to like get right in my head, get my girdle on, my eyelashes on.

Speaker 2 I can't be tending to him. And he needs to be tended to because he sees a hotel room and goes nuts.
You know, when he's in a hotel room, it's on like Donkey Kong. And I don't need that.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to do shows.

Speaker 2 So I do, my daughter travels with me. That's been a blessing and she can still lift and open, lift luggage and open up pickle jars.

Speaker 2 I think my grip's gone. But anyway, we do.
We get out and we do and I and I'm in front of thousands every night that are women. I look out in that.

Speaker 2 It's a lot of men now too, but I look out in that and I think I'd be best friends with every one of them. I'm not kidding, all over the United States.
I think these are my girls.

Speaker 2 Leanne, we are so excited for you. We have seen you three times and we can't wait to see you again.

Speaker 4 We love you.

Speaker 2 And they know exactly what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 I think that's so wonderful. That is why the Oprah Show worked all those years because I love the audience.

Speaker 4 I thought of myself as a surrogate for the audience and everybody who came from all over the country. I just love them.
I just so appreciated them, right? I know that's

Speaker 4 I know exactly what you're saying.

Speaker 4 I think that's so beautiful that you so relate to them and they so relate to you.

Speaker 2 That's exactly what I felt too, every day.

Speaker 4 Oh, and it's got to be so, you know, don't you think it's so much more fun now?

Speaker 4 Because you are mature enough to know what to do with the money, to not to go crazy, to understand what it means to fail and try again and get up and keep moving and be disappointed.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 you have done that again and again. And so that's why this moment is so glorious.

Speaker 2 Thank you. I do think I can handle it better.
If I'd have been that 20-something-year-old.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 Oh. Or even at 42 when you were like star-struck by the idea of coming to Hollywood.
Now you've had the, it may not work out, and so you are a lot more stable in moving forward.

Speaker 2 Oh, I am.

Speaker 2 I say, I might need somebody to drive me around because I can't see at night. But other than that, I mean, I'm pretty down to earth.
I feel like, you know, I've lived a lot of life and I

Speaker 2 do like a nice pair of shoes now that I was on a budget so long with Chuck Morgan but even that I mean I'm just I'm tickled that I can help my children and what have you allowed yourself to splurge on oh well I've got let me say this and this is I don't mean to come across sappy but this really made me feel good to be

Speaker 2 able to do this. My little high school, I graduated 42 people and it's a lot of future farmers of America.
Now farms, people are not farming. So

Speaker 2 it's, you know, not the most booming area.

Speaker 2 But the little children, the vice principal got through me to some, from somebody to me and said, we need calculators from sixth grade to senior for all these children. Thousands.
Six to 12.

Speaker 2 Yeah, six to 12.

Speaker 2 And then they need them for the advanced classes, the bad mamma jamma calculators. Okay.
And they said, would you be willing to donate any money toward these calculators?

Speaker 2 And I said to Chuck, I want to do this. So we did the whole thing.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that means the world to me for these little rural children that don't have the money to get a calculator. And that I'm able to do that.
And

Speaker 2 I want them to know because people kind of forget about the rural kids. And I remember going to the University of Tennessee, and I was not prepared.

Speaker 2 And there wasn't a lot of college prep classes in my school at all.

Speaker 2 I took home egg. I learned how to make an omelette because they knew that a lot of us weren't going to school.
And I remember people making fun of me at UT.

Speaker 2 And somebody would read a paper of mine and and say, what are you even doing here? How did you get in here?

Speaker 2 And I would carry that, you know, and for me to be able to do that for those little children,

Speaker 2 you know, that people kind of forget about means the world to me.

Speaker 4 I was just going to say, what in the world?

Speaker 2 What in the world? And I think that Chuck Morgan is very generous and charitable. And then my middle child is a nonprofit and raises money for children's hospital.

Speaker 2 And those two have taught me, I really think that's where joy comes from. When you can help somebody else.
Now, I have splurged on an outdoor playground that does not splinter for my grandchildren.

Speaker 2 It was pretty nifty. That was one of the first big purchases I made.
I go, I'm doing it. And they're going to have the best playground.

Speaker 4 An outdoor playground.

Speaker 2 An outdoor playground that does not splinter. Okay.
And that's got nifty things on it, and you can change it out, slides and whatnot.

Speaker 4 Well, what have you done for you, Leanne?

Speaker 2 I have, okay.

Speaker 2 I did, I've raised these children in the same house all these years, 20-something years in this house. It's been a beautiful home.
It's where Chuck Lori came.

Speaker 2 I did buy another home that I'm renovating that's got a tiny elevator in it. And so my mom's had a debilitating stroke is in a wheelchair.
So I can take her up and down. And I made her,

Speaker 2 they've decorated for her the wallpaper she wanted and all that. and a walk-in shower and everything's ADA wheelchair for her.

Speaker 2 And my mother-in-law is going to be on the other side and she's on a walker. So everybody's going to be able to go up and down.

Speaker 2 And I would have never thought I'd had a house with an elevator in it but it's got a beautiful view of the smoky mountains and the um and the lake water and it's a beautiful home and and I'll you know have privacy and all that kind of stuff because you could walk up into my house right now people send me stuff all the time a lot of cookies people send me a lot of cookies

Speaker 2 but I did I bought a home I haven't moved in yet I don't get to move in in the summer

Speaker 2 So that's been my biggest thing.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 And even then, I don't know if you even realize this, those of you who are listening and watching us know, that even then, when I say, what have you done for yourself, it was all about what you did for your mother and your mother-in-law.

Speaker 4 You were that, because that's the kind of woman you are.

Speaker 4 I am so proud and happy for your success and the fact that, you know, we often talk on this podcast about what is the meaning of a well-lived life. I think you are living it right now.
Thank you.

Speaker 4 You are living it right now.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 4 And I love that the book is called What in the World? Because every time something exciting or something challenging would happen in your life, you say, what in the world?

Speaker 2 What in the world?

Speaker 4 What in the world?

Speaker 2 What in the world? A valley or a mountaintop. We've all got them.
We got them.

Speaker 4 It's available anywhere you buy your books. And I have to say, you will be laughing out loud.
And her Netflix stand-up special, I'm Every Woman,

Speaker 4 it's a must-watch. Every time somebody new comes and hasn't seen it, I watch it again.
And her sitcom, Leanne, is the breath of fresh air we've all been waiting for.

Speaker 4 We all need right now. It's streaming on Netflix, and I do hope you watch it.

Speaker 2 Thank you, my darling.

Speaker 4 Thank you, dear listener, for joining us today. Talk to you all next week.
Go well.

Speaker 4 You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week.
Thanks, everybody.

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