Big surprise, Elon Musk was the Saturday Night Live host who made the cast cry
Back in August, Bowen Yang was asked on Watch What Happens Live to describe the worst Saturday Night Live host behavior he’d ever witnessed; Yang revealed an unnamed male host had made “multiple” cast members cry at the table read before the show because he didn’t like their ideas. Chloe Fineman wasn’t “gonna say anything,” but after Elon Musk trashed the show on Twitter/X, she decided to speak out.
Fineman’s remarks came after Musk wrote that “SNL has been dying slowly for years” in response to the post-election episode, which included an impression of Musk himself by Dana Carvey. In a since-deleted video (via People magazine), Fineman noted that she’d seen Musk “being butt-hurt about SNL and his impression” and revealed, “You made I, Chloe Fineman, burst into tears because I stayed up all night writing this sketch” when he hosted the comedy show in 2021.
“I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.’ I waited for you to be like, ‘Haha, JK.’ No,” she shared. “Then you started pawing through my script, like flipping each page being like, ‘I didn’t laugh. I didn’t laugh once, not one time.'”
The twist of this story is that the sketch in question actually made it to air (Entertainment Weekly speculates it might’ve been “The Ooli Show,” on which Fineman is credited as a writer), and it was “fine,” according to Fineman. “I actually had a really good time and I thought you were really funny in it, but, you know, have a little manners here, sir,” was Fineman’s scathing conclusion. As a takedown of Musk, we can’t say it’s particularly effective—he posted that the show isn’t funny, and Fineman’s story only reveals that he didn’t even think it was funny when he was the actual host. (PSA to Lorne Michaels: There is no long-term benefit to platforming people who hate you! Stop doing that!) As a bit of celebrity gossip, though, it’s moderately juicy, if unsurprising.