Jenna Kim Jones: Mormon Comedian
Jenna Kim Jones is a stand-up comedian and has a large following through social media. She was the host and narrator of the feature film Meet the Mormons and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jones was born in Seoul, Korea, then moved to Provo, Utah, with her family when she was eight years old. After she graduated from high school, she moved to New York City to study at New York University. She had aspirations to be a television writer and ultimately work for a comedy show, specifically David Letterman’s. Her bachelor’s degree was customized for producing and writing for television.
While working at a candy store in Manhattan during her college days, she developed a friendship with a customer who was an executive at a TV production company called Follow Productions. Her friendship with the executive opened internship doors at Follow, Martha Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CBS Prime Time Casting, and The Late Show with David Letterman. After she graduated from NYU, her dream came true with a temporary job on Letterman’s staff. She then worked for four years as full-time staff on The Daily Show. Her experience there included writing and creating the show, voice-overs, and occasional on-camera appearances.
Jones found a mentor at The Daily Show, producer and writer Rory Albanese who was also a standup comic. He invited her to go with him to a comedy club called Comics. She eventually agreed to perform her own stand up and became a regular on his “Daily Show and Friends” comedy club cast. Since that early beginning, she has stepped out on her own and appeared at various Manhattan clubs.
While achieving her dreams in New York City, she continued to maintain her standards: attending church each Sunday, obeying the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity. The producers of the “I’m a Mormon” online video series heard about her and featured her in a video that ended up being very popular. That exposure led her to be selected for the narrator and host of the Meet the Mormons movie that was filmed in 2012 and released nationwide in 2014.
Jones now lives in the Los Angeles, California, area with her husband, Allan Moss, where she continues to write and perform. In April of 2012, Huffington Post Comedy named her one of "18 Funny Women You Should Be Following On Twitter." Her first stand up comedy special #SorryNotSorry with Jenna Kim Jones is available for sale on Amazon. She also hosts a weekly podcast also called #SorryNotSorry.
- "Maybe in my younger years, I had a little more of those defining moments; if I just said those swear words or if I decided I wanted to act (a certain way), I’d probably be more successful, but I’ve been living this lifestyle for so long, those situations don’t really come up for me anymore," Jones said in an interview with Ravishly.
- "Everything I say onstage, I stand behind 100 percent because I wrote it and it’s part of who I am. I think that’s part of why standup is so much fun for me because I get to be creative and explore who I am, but it’s all on my terms."[1]
