Dave Chappelle is hosting SNL tonight, regardless of the news cycle.
After the announcement that Chappelle would be hosting SNL for the third time with Black Star as his musical guest, a report circulated that SNL writers were staging a boycott ahead of the live episode.
However, a rep for Chappelle told CNN in a statement that it wasn’t true. “We’ve seen nothing to support media reports of a writer’s boycott. In fact, the writers delivered over 40 sketches for Dave’s consideration and collaboration. Just as during Dave’s past SNL appearances, you won’t want to miss it!”
News of Chappelle hosting was met with intense emotion given his history of comments about the transgender community. This was supported by the fact that SNL added its first non-binary cast member, comedian, and actor Molly Kearney, and has a trans non-binary writer, Celeste Yim.
During Chappelle’s promos, he poked fun at the news cycle.
“Wait, we’re doing it live?” asked Ego Nwodim. “Of course,” said Chappelle.“With you?” said Nwodim. “Obviously,” said Chappelle. “In this news cycle?” Nwodim replied. “Yup,” he said, in which Nwodim sounded skeptical: “Interesting.”
In his 15-minute plus monologue, Chappelle addressed Kanye West and his anti-Semitic remarks. He also went at Kyrie Irving, former President Donald Trump, and more.
On Irving, Chappelle said, “Kanye got in so much trouble Kyrie got in trouble. Kyrie Irving posted a link of to a movie he seen on Amazon. No caption on the post or nothing like that, but apparently this movie had Anti-Semitic tropes...and the NBA told him he should apologize and he was slow to apologize. The list of demands to get back into their good graces got longer and longer and this is where I draw the line. I know the Jewish people have been through terrible things all over the world, but you can’t blame that on Black Americans.”
Later, he went back to Kanye. “This guy lost a billion and a half dollars in a day. When I saw that, I said, ‘Put your chain on...welcome back!”
You can watch the whole thing above, where he also discusses the 2022 midterm elections.
