Jess Hilarious has had a meteoric rise from online comedy clips to becoming one-third of “The Breakfast Club.” Still, the Baltimore native is vocal about the times when her past actions held her back from various opportunities.
During an interview with fellow comedienne Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams and Jordan E. Cooper on Wednesday (Nov. 5), Jess revealed she was supposed to be a guest on Pat’s BET show’ ‘Miss Pat Settles It,’ only for BET to put a stop to it immediately.
“You know I was supposed to have been on multiple episodes of ‘Miss Pat Settles It,” Jess began. “But I got a phone call right as the paperwork was done and all of that, saying that I could no longer be on the show for a few episodes because of a comment that I made. And the comment was literally, verbatim, ‘Only women can have babies.’ I said that.”
Once Jess was given that information, she wondered if the comment was the reason she couldn’t be on the show and BET said yes. Pat confirmed that the network has to approve anyone who appears on the show, but she fought for Jess to appear, to no avail.
Jess said she didn’t have any ill will toward Ms. Pat for vouching for her, but thought it was “bogus” that she couldn’t do the show and doubled down on her belief.
“I was really upset about that,” Jess told Cooper, who co-created “The Ms. Pat Show” alongside Ms. Pat. “I understand why [people were upset] but that don’t mean what I said was not true.”
Ms. Pat offered some advice to her fellow comedienne, suggesting that whenever Jess could be confronted with a similar situation, she should heed a simple rule.
“Let them allow to be whatever they want to be,” Ms. Pat said.
Ms. Pat and Cooper weren’t the first guests to ask Jess about past comments some could deem transphobic. In a 2023 interview, Laverne Cox asked the comedian if she had ever faced backlash for offensive remarks toward the LGBTQIA+ community and how the reaction made her feel.
“I was mad. I was very upset,” Jess told Cox. “How can you say I’m homophobic because of this and because of that?”
In May of this year, Jess reiterated her stance to “Breakfast Club” guest Lynae Vanee, who told the stand-up comedian that anyone “with a uterus” can have a baby, even if they don’t identify as a woman. Jess agreed with her, proudly declaring, “Yes, if you have a uterus, you can have a baby.”
However, the statement didn’t necessarily land with all parties, such as content creator Kevin Ortega-Roja, who accused Jess of being transphobic and offensive to the queer community.
“Dear @jesshilarious_official … transphobia affects you too,” he captioned an Instagram post in response to Jess’s comments. “It’s time to abandon these transphobic talking points because the harm you’re causing will cost real people their lives.”
