Leanne Morgan loves to laugh, even if it’s at her own expense. The comedian just wrapped up her 100-city Big Panty Tour — named in part she says because that really is her underwear of choice — with a show in Las Vegas on December 8, and will return to touring in 2023, which includes a stop at the Grand Ole Opry in April.
“I looked at my material and what I was talking about,” Morgan says of the unique name for her tour. “I’m in menopause. I’m 57 years old and it dawned on me that throughout 22 years of doing comedy, I’ve talked about my panties a lot. When I got started, I talked about maternity pants, ’cause I was having babies in the foothills of the Appalachia Mountains. And then, I lost weight after having babies, and I wore tinier panties. When I started in midlife, I thought, ‘Man, I like a good comfortable big panty. My material, I just really talk about panties, and I just came up with that name one day. I thought, ‘That’s what the theme of this is.’
“I know it’s for people my age, but it’s also for younger girls,” she adds. “I feel like it’s just more of a lifestyle of being comfortable with who you are, and being able to be comfortable. And everybody loves a good lounge panty, a big comfortable panty.”
Morgan stumbled on being a comedian by accident, when she was selling jewelry in people’s homes to make a little extra money.
“I started selling jewelry in Bean Station, Tennessee,” Morgan recounts. “I met my husband at UT, and then we moved up there and he bought a used mobile home business … I tried to work for him, and he’s bossy. And I saw a family drive up in a Gremlin with a window out, and a nine-year-old smoking a cigarette — she lit it off of Memaw. So I quit that day, and I went home and I got pregnant that night. But my husband was only 26 years old with a business and trying to make all that happen. And so I wanted money to get my hair highlighted.”
Morgan had no idea when she started selling jewelry that she was unintentionally combining two of her biggest passions, while kicking off a lengthy and successful career by making people laugh all over the world.
“I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom,” Morgan shares. “And I always wanted to be a comedian, but here I was in Appalachia. How was that gonna happen? There was no comedy club. And my friend in Nashville said, ‘I’m selling this jewelry like women sell Tupperware. I’m making money every night, and I can be with women. It’s fun. I put out a spinach artichoke dip, and a brownie, and we’re having a ball.’ So I started selling that jewelry in Bean Station, Tennessee, in the surrounding counties. And I was supposed to be talking about jewelry, and instead, I was talking about hemorrhoids, breastfeeding, being mad because my husband wouldn’t hear the baby crying in the night, conveniently.”
Because of her comedy far more than her jewelry, women started booking Morgan’s parties a year in advance, and her humble career began, although she never could have predicted the massive success she now enjoys. After moving to San Antonio, Texas, Morgan was exposed to real comedy clubs for the first time, and it wasn’t nearly as easy as making people laugh at her jewelry parties.
“There were times I couldn’t get arrested. Nobody cared. I couldn’t get booked,” Morgan recalls with a laugh. “I was doing horrible gigs. I mean, anything anybody asked me to do, get up in the back of a restaurant in front of the women’s bathroom. I did. But I was raising children, and it all worked out. And then I’d have a television deal for a sitcom. I was always kind of in this Hollywood game, but I was raising [my children] in Texas and then Knoxville, Tennessee. And I really thought I was gonna quit. I knew I was having a grandbaby. I had a child married right out of college and I thought, ’cause I’m from the country … I really thought, being from the country, when we have grandbabies, we like to put on a house dress and start cooking pinto beans.”
Morgan was ready to walk away from her comedy career when, in 2019, some of her videos went viral, including an online Dry Bar special, “So Yummy,” which exploded, suddenly making Morgan more in demand than ever.
“I started selling out all over the United States at 53 years old,” Morgan says. “Then I got this big 100-city tour, and now I’m going on another 100-city tour starting in 2023. And that’s when I’m coming to Nashville to the Grand Old Opry,”
A list of all of Morgan’s upcoming shows is available at LeanneMorgan.com.