Four Times ‘SNL’ Clapped Back at Problematic Guests
At first, the beef between Saturday Night Live and Morgan Wallen seemed like a misunderstanding. Sure, Wallen walked off stage while the credits were rolling, but that was an honest mistake, right? His “Get me back to God’s country” Instagram Story might have been Wallen ready to end a long work week. But considering the way SNL called out Wallen on last week’s show, he must have been a pain in the ass after all. The incident inspired a Reddit thread on r/LiveFromNewYork where fans recalled other times SNL clapped back at guests after they turned in problematic performances.
Morgan Wallen
Yeah, something was up. After Wallen ghosted the cast during SNL goodbyes, Kenan Thompson told Entertainment Weekly, “I don’t know what goes through people’s minds when they decide to do stuff like that. I don’t know if he understood the assignment or not.” Thompson also said he never met Wallen during his two appearances on the show.
The following week, SNL took two shots at Wallen’s quick exit. James Austin Johnson got there first, impersonating Donald Trump imagining a visit to a McDonald's island: “Get me to God’s country, right?”
Then Colin Jost added the exclamation point with this Weekend Update joke: “Just in the past two days, investors have lost over $6 trillion. Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at goodnights.”
Sinéad O’Connor
SNL wasn’t exactly kind to O’Connor before the musical performance when she ripped up a picture of the Pope. Phil Hartman ridiculed her in the “Sinatra Group” sketch a year earlier, calling her “Sinbad” and “Cueball.”
Watch on TikTok
Lorne Michaels wasn’t bothered by O’Connor’s political statement as much as the lack of a heads-up — don’t throw off the timing of my show! But Joe Pesci got ugly when he hosted the following week. “I thought that was wrong,” he said in his monologue. “Why should I let it bother me, am I right? It wasn’t my show, it was Tim Robbins’ show. But I’ll tell you one thing, she was lucky it wasn’t my show. Cause if it was my show, I would have given her such a smack. I would have grabbed her by her eyebrows.”
Oof.
Lana Del Rey
After Del Rey delivered a wooden musical performance on SNL, fans took her apart on social media. Kristen Wiig got in on the act, too, impersonating Del Rey’s monotone voice while whining about online backlash that called her “the worst musical guest in SNL history.” Considering that Del Rey’s only sin against the show was mediocre singing, this clapback seemed a little cruel.
Kanye West
After West’s unplanned MAGA rant in 2018, the seven-time musical guest has never been asked back. At least not the real guy — SNL has brought Kanye back plenty of times as a comedy character.
Shortly after the rant, Chris Redd turned up as Kanye in a Donald Trump sketch. When Trump asked him to make “a few lucid remarks,” Redd/Kanye rambled, “Let me begin with the idea that time is a myth. And there are infinite amounts of universe, and I’m a prisoner in a different dimension. Have I lost anyone so far? Okay, so we’ll talk about trap doors. The 13th Amendment is a trap door. And if you are installing a floor, aka the Constitution, why would you build a trap door where you could end up with the Unabomber?”
The camera pushed in on Trump as we hear his thoughts: “Oh, this guy might be cuckoo.”
