Leanne Morgan always dreamed of Hollywood, a goal forged while hamming it up in the aisles of her family’s small grocery store in rural Tennessee. While her teachers recognized her comedic gift early on, life ultimately got in the way. With three children and a working husband, Morgan couldn’t grind it out on the club circuit. For years, she settled for corporate gigs and charity benefits, watching periodic overtures from the industry fizzle out.
By 2019, she was ready to hang it up. As a last-ditch effort, she invested a few thousand dollars in social media experts to reformat her material for a digital audience. The gamble paid off spectacularly. Overnight, her comedy went viral, and Morgan, then in her early 50s, became the draw she always imagined she’d be. A sold-out arena tour, a hit Netflix special, and a best-selling book followed, leading to an eponymous Chuck Lorre sitcom for Netflix, premiering July 31. Approaching her 60th birthday, the self-described “Grandmama from Tennessee” reflects on her late-in-life success and the feedback that nearly derailed it.
This newfound fame has brought a confidence she admits she is “still working on.” In previous development deals, Morgan struggled to assert her vision when faced with industry pressure to change. “I worked with precious people, but I’d know in my heart, this is not how we are in the south,” she recalls. “This is not how church people are. This is not how my family is. They’ll tell you, ‘We love you,’ but then they want to change you. Hollywood people can’t help it. And I don’t blame ’em, they don’t know my world.”
With her new sitcom, she finally found her voice. “I was finally able to get to a place where at the beginning of every week, I could read through a script and go, ‘We wouldn’t say that,’ or ‘This isn’t what would happen.’ So, I’m finally getting the guts, honey.”
Her path was unconventional. While raising her children, she performed at notoriously tough corporate events. “Oh, they’re horrible. They suck the life out of you,” she says. “These men have been playing golf all day, they’re tired, they’ve probably had alcohol, and I’m up there talking about going on Weight Watchers and how I don’t like low-cut panties.”
While festival bookers dismissed her as a “mom comic” who wasn’t “edgy,” club owners saw her unique appeal and kept booking her. Hollywood, ironically, was drawn to that persona but then tried to remold it. “They’d see my new 45 minutes and say, ‘You’ve written a sitcom!’” she says. “Then I’d get there and they’d go, ‘Let’s make your husband a Hispanic man.’ Let’s make your daughter on dope.’ And I’d be like, ‘Have y’all watched my act?!’”
The culture eventually caught up to her. “COVID hit and people wanted to connect with people who were real, and there I was on the back porch talking about fixing my mama something that she could eat after her stroke,” Morgan explains. “I talk about taking care of elderly parents, launching children, menopause, and it was a niche that nobody was filling.”
Even so, getting Netflix on board “took ’em a while,” she admits, until influential supporters in her camp could make a compelling case: “Y’all don’t have anybody like her.” She leased her first hourlong special to the streamer, which led to a deal for two more and the sitcom with Lorre.
For the show, she and Lorre initially envisioned a single-camera comedy, but Netflix had other plans. “They said, ‘Would y’all please consider doing a multicam and bringing that format back?’” Morgan remembers. “Then they said, ‘We’ll greenlight it right now if you do.’”
Another key decision was to deviate from her real life. It was Lorre’s idea to make her character a divorcée. “He didn’t want to base it on my real family, and he liked the idea of starting over because it’s a theme that people can relate to,” Morgan says. “I balked at first, but I think it’s the smartest thing we did.”
The fictional premise has already caused some confusion among her fans. “Women on Instagram started saying, ‘I knew that Chuck Morgan couldn’t handle her success!’” she laughs. “And then he saw it and said, ‘Do something!’”
Her real-life husband remains a good sport, with only one joke ever being off-limits. Early in her career, she quipped about wanting a breast augmentation but said it had been a “bad year in the mobile home industry,” her husband’s business. “He said to me, ‘I will always take care of you. I could write a check for your breasts right now. I don’t want anybody to think I cannot provide for you.’ That is his purpose, and I never said anything like that again.”
Data from her 2023 Netflix special, I’m Every Woman, validates her appeal, showing high completion rates and multiple rewatches. “You just know that Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, all these guys that I’ve admired, are getting these numbers and are thinking, like, ‘Who is this woman with the big breasts and the flowery dress talking about her panties?’”
Unlike many of her peers, she has no plans to get political. “Honey, if you want to talk about fingernail polish or a spray tan, I’m good at that,” she says. “I’ve had my Dolly Parton to look up to, and, like her, I just don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable.”
After filming the movie You’re Cordially Invited with Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell and now launching her own show, Morgan is embracing her Hollywood moment, albeit with some nerves. “I’m tickled,” she says. “I’ve texted everybody I know that’s had a TV show, like, ‘What if people don’t like it?’ But Jerry Seinfeld said to me, ‘Honey, get ready to worry the rest of your life. That’s just part of it.’”
