Comedy is always a lightning rod for controversy, and as one of the biggest comedy institutions in pop culture, Saturday Night Live has sparked outrage too many times to count.
The NBC show offers timely and topical sketches from the Studio 8H stage every week, but sometimes in the rush to showtime on Saturday night, the producers, writers, and cast members don’t give questionable ideas a second thought. Other times, however, it’s not their fault; it’s the hosts and musical guests that land the show in scandal.
Below is a timeline with our picks for the biggest controversies of SNL’s run so far — even those that seem overblown in retrospect.
1988: The word “penis” offends viewers and advertisers
When Matthew Broderick made his hosting debut on SNL in 1988, he joined the cast in a sketch called “Nude Beach,” which boasted more than 40 utterances of the word “penis.” Scandalized viewers sent 46,000 letters to the network to complain, and SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels said that sponsors including Toyota dropped their support of the show, per Time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3xc4LMTrT0
1990: Andrew Dice Clay’s hosting gig sparks internal and external protests
Clay’s 1990 hosting gig on SNL had Rock Against Racism, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and the National Organization for Women protesting outside Rockefeller Center, angry that the show had invited in a comedian known for racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comedy, per The Boston Globe.
Then-cast member Nora Dunn even boycotted Clay’s episode. “I don’t want to be part of providing an arena for him to make himself legitimate because I don’t think he is,” she told the Associated Press at the time. “Although I feel he has a right to express himself, I have a right to strongly state my position.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igzQNEkznG4
1992: Sinéad O’Connor shreds a photo of Pope John Paul II
In a 1992 performance on SNL, O’Connor punctuated her cover of Bob Marley’s “War” by tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II. The Irish singer-songwriter later explained she was calling out child abuse in the Catholic Church, but the resulting backlash across the United States and even the world — including from Joe Pesci, the following week’s SNL host, who said on air that he would have given O’Connor a “smack” — dealt a major blow to her career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3CuF7B3tIY
1992: A “Wayne’s World” sketch picks on Chelsea Clinton, then 13 years old
In a “Wayne’s World” sketch on SNL later that year, Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) say adolescence “has been unkind to Chelsea Clinton,” the then-13-year-old daughter of then-President-elect Bill Clinton, per Cracked. Myers later apologized to the Clinton family, Michaels said the joke “wasn’t worth it,” and the comments have been edited out of replays, like the YouTube version below.
Chelsea reflected on that sketch 30 years later in the docuseries Gutsy. “When SNL made fun of me, I was like, ‘Wow, a group of adults sat in a room, all decided this was a good idea. Nobody thought maybe we shouldn’t make fun of children,’” she said, according to Business Insider. “I was like, ‘Oh, I just don’t think that’s funny or OK.’”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIHfvbGKYsY
1996: Rage Against the Machine bassist goes into a rage
Rage Against the Machine’s 1996 appearance on SNL brought drama to the comedy show. For starters, the rock band had hung American flags upside-down on their amps before their first number, and SNL crew members had to scramble to remove the flags with seconds to spare.
Then, after the band’s second performance was scrubbed, bassist Tim Commerford threw a knotted American flag at the family members of host Steve Forbes, a billionaire-turned-Republican presidential candidate, according to guitarist Tom Morello. “The hallway floods with Secret Service,” Morello revealed in the Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music documentary, per NME. “We get escorted out and put on the sidewalk at 30 Rock. You might notice Rage is not in the farewells on that particular show.”
2000: Jimmy Fallon dons blackface to impersonate Chris Rock
Fallon issued a belated apology in 2020 after a 2000 SNL sketch resurfaced, showing him wearing blackface to imitate Chris Rock. In a post on Twitter (now X), Fallon called the impersonation a “terrible decision” for which there is no excuse. He added, “I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bui2mzJIjFc
2004: Ashlee Simpson is caught lip-synching
A 2004 appearance on SNL went awry for Simpson. In the pop star’s musical performance on stage in that episode, a vocal track for the wrong track played, revealing she was lip-synching.
Simpson tried to dance off the humiliation but then fled the stage, leaving her band behind. She later explained she had severe acid reflux and was having problems with her voice that night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao36TqPeteA
2013: The show’s lack of diversity makes headlines
The disproportionate whiteness of the SNL cast gave the show bad press in 2013, when onlookers noted that only three out of the 16 SNL stars employed at the time were people of color, and there hadn’t been a Black female cast member on the show for six consecutive years. SNL started rectifying the issue the following year with its hiring of Sasheer Zamata and Leslie Jones.
2015: Donald Trump hosts the show as a presidential candidate
SNL has capitalized on Trump jokes time and time again, but the future president hosted the show in 2015 in a booking that upset the show’s on-air and behind-the-scenes talent.
“It was rough,” Taran Killam, a cast member at the time, told NPR in 2017 as he reflected on Trump’s hosting gig. “It was not enjoyable at the time and something that only grows more embarrassing and shameful as time goes on.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkLzSLkYnGc
2019: Shane Gillis is hired — then fired after racist comments resurface
Gillis was one of the new cast members hired for Season 45, but just days after his casting was announced, SNL cut ties with the comedian. At the time, social media users had resurfaced his history of racist and homophobic comments. “The language he used is offensive, hurtful, and unacceptable,” a spokesperson said at the time. “We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
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