Here Is the Love

Loni Love has been a comedy favorite ever since she started spouting witty one-liners on VH1’s flagship I Love the... series. But now this engineer-turned-comedian has become the go-to woman for several funny quips and segments taking up space (thankfully so) on DVRs across the country.

On her way to a gig in Connecticut, Love talks to The Advocate about her career, fending off lesbian rumors, and her upcoming Comedy Central special, an hour-long set, premiering on May 8.

The Advocate: I noticed on your tour schedule that you recently emceed the Equality Awards for Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth. How was that?
Loni Love: It was great. I learned a lot — because it was for Long Island, there were 24 senators who actually voted for the marriage equality act. Some of them were honored there, and it was really like an overall push. They’re trying to raise funds so that senators that believe in equality can still stay in office. There are some threats to them for being voted out of office. A lot of it has to do with them being voted out of office because they don’t have the money to campaign. It was a really good event — they also honored a couple of other actors and it was really nice.

Is this your second Comedy Central special to air?
Yeah, but this is the first time I’ve had an hour. My first special was a half hour, and then they gave me an hour this time and I’m really excited about it. It’s called America’s Sister, basically doing the Loni Love tell-it-like-it-is style of comedy.

So how did you make the transition from being an engineer to doing stand-up?
I was a horrible engineer. I always did comedy in college, just on the side. I got my degree and one night after I moved to L.A., I went to a comedy club, and I noticed that there weren’t a lot of females. There wasn’t really a female voice. I started getting back into doing comedy, and I just did that for a while. Then one day we had a layoff, and I felt really bad because there were people who actually wanted to keep their jobs and I didn’t want to keep mine, so my boss laid me off and saved someone else’s job. So I became a full-time comic, and I never looked back.