Scarlett Johansson Was Genuinely Horrified by ‘SNL’s Weekend Update Joke Swap

It may feel like a decade ago, but it’s now been exactly one month since Martin Short hosted Saturday Night Live’s 2024 Christmas show. And while most of the sketches that aired that night have largely been forgotten, Colin Jost and Michael Che’s notorious Weekend Update joke swap continues to generate a surprising amount of cultural discourse. 

That’s because the most recent installment of the increasingly masochistic tradition was particularly brutal. Seth Meyers once claimed that both Jost and Che were “haunted by the experience,” as if it was a joint trauma. Adding to the excruciating awkwardness of the whole thing, Jost’s superstar wife, Scarlett Johansson, was at the show, having previously cameoed in the celebrity-filled Five-Timers Club sketch.

And Johansson’s live reaction to the joke-swap segment was captured on camera for everyone to see. After one particularly tasteless line involving her genitalia and the worst fast-food chain outside of “Krusty Burger,” the Lost in Translation star was seemingly shocked and appalled, exclaiming, “Oh my God,” and stopping just short of saying “Holy shit” on live TV.

But was Johansson’s horror genuine? After all, she is an Oscar-nominated actress who has convincingly played both a superhero and a smartphone. Pretending to be surprised at a bad joke would be a cake walk for her. Well, Jost recently stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and stressed that his wife wasn’t faking the reaction.

Before chatting about SNL’s upcoming 50th anniversary special, and the time Jost won $5,000 on the game show The Weakest Link (then blew it all on beer and wine while partying with the other contestants in a hot tub), Fallon brought up the joke swap. When asked if he was “in trouble with Scarlett,” Jost responded, “I’m in trouble, I think, with a lot of people.”

He went on to reveal that “Scarlett was so genuinely shocked,” even though she had received a slight warning from the show’s producers. “I was obviously surprised by everything,” Jost recalled, “but they gave her a heads-up. They were like, ‘Hey, would you be okay if Michael made a little, like, vagina joke at some point?’ And she was like, ‘Sure, you know, whatever, I’m open to it.’”

In retrospect, that description may have been underselling the content of the joke slightly. “I didn’t know where it was going. And then the graphic came up for Arby’s,” Jost explained. And while he still didn’t have any idea where the bit was headed, his wife had put two and two together. “Scarlett is backstage like, ‘Oh my god, that’s what it is?!?!’”

Shockingly, Fallon’s team of producers didn’t find a way to turn this portion of the interview into sponsored content for Arby’s.

As for his own response to the joke, Jost reaffirmed that it, too, was authentic. “I can’t act that well,” Jost confessed, presumably while everyone in America who saw Tom & Jerry nodded silently in agreement.