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Believe it or not, Saturday Night Live UK only launched earlier this very year, but it has definitely made its mark already. Just last month, the show won widespread praise on both sides of the Atlantic for its coverage of the Ed Sheeran and Macklemore drama.
If you need a reminder, Ed unceremoniously dropped Macklemore from his Loop Tour after he called for a “free Palestine” during his opening set at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 4.
Just days after it all unfolded, SNL UK poked fun at Ed’s widely criticized “both sides” statement in response to the backlash, among other references in support of Macklemore in that week’s Weekend Update, hosted by Ania Magliano and Paddy Young.
Remembering some of the celebs that she has interviewed on her show Chicken Shop Date, Amelia described “a world-famous redheaded puppet with a hand up his ass, telling him what to say,” as a photo of her with Elmo appeared on a screen. She then said: “No, the other one,” and the picture switched to one of her with Ed, to the rapturous applause from the live studio audience.
Ed came up again during that episode’s Weekend Update. After mentioning Harvey Weinstein’s recent 15-year prison sentence following a new sexual assault conviction, Paddy said: “Back in 2016, Weinstein hired a private intelligence firm to help dig up dirt on his victims. So on one side, we have a prolific rapist with paid spies. On the other, we have abuse victims who’ve been silenced. A conflict described by Ed Sheeran as ‘nuanced.’”
But SNL UK might have had its most iconic moment yet on Saturday’s episode of the show, when they responded to the Shane Gillis SNL US scandal. It is all incredibly meta.
If you’ve been anywhere near social media this past week, you probably know that Shane’s opening monologue on Oct. 10 triggered widespread scrutiny, with several celebrities taking to social media to call out the comic, SNL, and, well, men in general.
“I haven't been to the gym in so long. I didn't know women just dressed like whores now," Shane began at the time. "Look, I'm sorry, there's no other way to describe… Have you seen it? I've seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon…they're like artificial-bait colored. And the wrinkles, the wrinkles go, like, around the cheeks and all combined at the butthole … And don't look. You're not allowed to look. For real, don't look because they are filming. I'm in the background of, like, 10 TikToks right now."
Shane went on to joke about his “two big, fat bitch sisters,” and later made a joke about his haircut resembling Adolf Hitler’s, but if he brushes it to the side, he looks “gay.” He concluded the bit with: “You’re either gay or you’re Hitler, and isn’t that where we’re at as a country?”
The whole thing left a very bad taste in people’s mouths, especially given the current climate amid the highly publicized Cornell University lawsuit. Summing up the discourse, one viral post reads: “the normalization of casual misogyny like this directly contributes to rape culture. if you’re against what happened at cornell, you need to be against this too.”
In addition to his opening monologue, Shane’s SNL stint was in the headlines after he accidentally dropped the F-bomb partway through the live show. He ended up apologizing for this at the end of the episode, telling the studio audience and viewers at home: “Sorry about earlier.”
And all of this was expertly acknowledged during Ania’s weekend update on Saturday, where she said: “A ride operator at Munich Oktoberfest was praised for giving free cycling shorts to female riders. Wearing the gym shorts will protect women from being upskirted, but it does make them vulnerable to something much worse…” behind her, an image of Shane delivering his SNL monologue flashed on screen.
But that wasn’t all. “Last week on SNL, comedian Shane Gillis also caused controversy by dropping the F-bomb,” Ania continued, adding: “Oh, Shane, you’re not allowed to say that." She then paused for a beat before concluding: "You stupid fucking cunt.”
Needless to say, viewers were left absolutely gagged by that last remark, which also highlighted the difference in America and the United Kingdom’s rules around swearing on late night TV. Reacting to the mic-drop moment, one popular tweet reads: “calling out the american version and its misogynist host and using the kind of swear word that would cause nbc censors to light up like a christmas tree to do so is incredible work SNL UK is MY SNL i’ve never even heard of the og.”
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