Ellen DeGeneres helps make dying comedian’s dream come true

Comedian Quincy Jones has been through a lot. The 31-year-old Los Angeles stand-up comedian was diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer last summer. At the time, doctors gave him one year to live.

Despite the physical toll that chemotherapy has taken, Jones still regularly performs stand-up. He’s perfecting his act so that he can fulfil his final wish: record an hour-long stand-up special.

“I want to leave something behind,” Jones said in early March.

Now, not only will he be recording that special (thanks to fundraising efforts by friends), but that special will get an incredible platform: HBO.

Ellen DeGeneres made an appeal to executives from Netflix and HBO during an episode of her show last week, where Jones shared his story. On Monday, Jones was back and DeGeneres had a special announcement.

“What you don’t know is we called the head of HBO and your people didn’t even tell you this, but HBO is going to air your special,” she said.

Jones erupted into laughter and, in disbelief, repeatedly asked, “Are you serious?”

The special will debut in the spring, according to a news release from the network.

Landing an HBO special marks a major milestone in the career of a stand-up comedian. When Jones’ friends launched the fundraising effort, the focus was just on getting enough money to make a quality recording of the set, to be performed on April 4.

“I had always wanted to do a special,” Jones said weeks before his appearance on the NBC daytime show. “I figured that’s where I was at in my career, seven years in; it’s about time we start working towards that. Other than that, you feel like you’re treading water. I do open mics, I do shows, but what’s the goal? What’s the outcome?”

“We all want to make it to Bill Burr, Chris Rock status,” he added, ticking off names of comics who recorded his favourite specials. “With the cancer, I might not be able to. One day, my health will not be good enough for me to get on stage.”

But Jones is optimistic that he’ll beat the timeline initially set by doctors when they first diagnosed him with stage-four mesothelioma.

“You have to be mentally committed to fight, to deal with cancer,” he explained. “For me, I was determined to fight.”