‘SNL’ Writer Debunks the ‘New York Times’ Story About Domingo’s Origin
Saturday Night Live’s “Domingo” sketch really blew up on social media last year, prompting the show to revive the character multiple times for what has now become a wildly unnecessarily complex narrative. They even released small, plastic Domingo toys for collectors who want their Funko Pops to have more drunken hookups.
The original sketch found a group of bridesmaids, headed by Ariana Grande, awkwardly singing Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” at a wedding reception. But their modified lyrics recounted a trip that ended with the bride sharing a hot tub with a goateed stranger.
In a behind-the-scenes video, SNL writers Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan revealed that the seed of the idea for the sketch came from a video of a real-life wedding reception. “There is a video of a girl at her sister’s wedding doing a speech and she does a Hamilton rap,” Fowlie recalled. “If you’re that girl and you’re seeing this, I can’t even tell you how much joy the video’s brought me. I’m so glad you did it, because it inspired this.” He also explained that he really wanted to do a sketch where Grande “sings poorly.”
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A woman named Julia Jornsay-Silverbergthen suggested that a video from her wedding reception may have been what inspired the Domingo sketch. After all, her sister did sing a track from Hamilton, and Weird Al-ed the lyrics to make them about the bride and the groom. Her story even attracted the attention of The New York Times, which published a lengthy profile of the Jornsay-Silverberg sisters, the apparent inspirations for one of SNL’s most popular sketches.
Well, O’Sullivan recently guested on the Financial Feminist podcast and poured cold water on this theory. The writer noted that the sketch’s “secret sauce” was Grande’s impressive ability to sing badly which is “really, really difficult” for someone who happens to be “one of the best singers in the world.” O’Sullivan also said that the writers showed Grande the real video for inspiration.
But when host Tori Dunlap asked about the New York Times article, O’Sullivan bluntly responded, “It’s not them.” She also pointed out that the sister in question was “too good of a singer.” And while not everyone has gotten a write-up in The New York Times, a lot of people have reached out to O’Sullivan about this. “People are in my DMs being like, ‘It’s me, it’s me. I’m the Hamilton rap that inspired Domingo,’” but she added that “none of them are yet” and they’re all “too good.”
We don’t want to single anyone out either; there do seem to be a number of truly terrible performances of Hamilton songs at wedding receptions available online that, for some reason, nobody at the Times thought was worth looking into. And presumably no one at SNL will tell us which video it is because they don’t want anybody suing NBC for a piece of those Funko Pop profits.
