Rosie Jones makes the Pride List

The Independent's list of influential LGBT+ people

Rosie Jones has been named one of the top ten most influential LGBT+ people in Britain.

The comedian made No7 in The Independent’s Pride List, behind the likes of Ncuti Gatwa, Alex Scott and Wes Streeting.

Also in the top 50 are comics Joe Lycett, Graham Norton, Jack Rooke and Sandi Toksvig.

Those included are deemed to be the 'LGBT+ community’s biggest change-makers over the past 12 months’.

In its citation for Jones, the newspaper said: ‘Last year Jones, who was born with cerebral palsy, made a hard-hitting documentary based on one of thousands of abusive messages she receives daily on Twitter/X. She reported one which read "you are retarded", but the social media platform refused to take action, which led her to make the documentary Am I Retarded? on Channel 4.

‘Jones, who came out as gay in 2017, used the documentary to raise awareness of how serious the tirade of abuse is and to highlight how little discourse or support there is around ableist online trolling.

‘Jones also strives to make comedy and TV more inclusive as, growing up, she only saw white males as comedians, but never saw any lesbian disabled people, like her. Any token disabled people that she did see on the TV were often portrayed as victims and weren’t thought to have sexualities, she said.’

Read The Independent’s full rundown here.

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Published: 3 Jun 2024