D.L. Hughley

“You can fake it, but when it’s real, it’s an involuntary reaction and you have nothing to do with it,” says the famously candid comedian D.L. Hughley during a break from his gig as a political correspondent on The Jay Leno Show. “We need moments like that, when we lose control and are rewarded. I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He’s talking, of course, about laughter, and he’s been making it happen for more than 20 years now. Hughley’s career has spanned a variety of roles and media since his days as host of BET’s ComicView; the writer/producer/actor has appeared in sitcoms (The Hughleys, Scrubs) and movies (The Original Kings of Comedy, Soul Plane), headlined several comedy specials, and even wrote and hosted a short-lived comedy news show on CNN (D.L. Hughley Breaks the News). In addition to his current gig with Leno, Hughley has also stepped into the ring of a longtime rivalry between New York City’s two highest-rated urban adult contemporary radio stations. WRKS is hoping The D.L. Hughley Morning Show will trump WBLS’s nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show.
To Hughley, though, it’s all pretty much the same. “I use the same skill set for all of them,” he says. “It’s like the water that comes to your house. Some you use to wash your clothes, some you use to take a shower, but it’s all from the same source, and comedy is not that much different to me.”
Hughley picked up a microphone for the first time on Valentine’s Day of 1988, and he hasn’t looked back since.
“What was different for me is that I always believed there was something special out there for me,” Hughley says of his early trials. “I knew if I didn’t put myself in an untenable position, if I kept myself clean enough and clear enough and that when it finally happened I was sober enough that I could take advantage of it and seize the day, that everything would be alright. It was comedy for me. The first time I picked up a microphone, I knew it was what I was supposed to do for the rest of my life.”
Hughley has earned a reputation for his scathing topical comedy, and he’s sent more than one entertainment journalist to the thesaurus to find more ways of calling him “outspoken.” (Yep, “candid” is in there.) He pisses off the right on a regular basis, and the left almost as often. Though he’s quick to cite an obvious liberal bent, he prides himself on calling out ridiculous behavior, regardless of political affiliations.
To that end, Hughley sees comedy as serious business. “I think we need comedy for the same reason we need music, for the same reason we need art, for the same reason we need food and air. These things are all vitally important. A genuine laugh is an involuntary reaction, and you have to either give into it or not. And I promise you this: I’m going to work very hard to make you laugh until you hurt yourself.” (April Snellings)