Saturday Night Live has been a staple of American television for well over 40 years. The show has produced a list of iconic stars and pop culture moments that almost no other television show can match. SNL, on the other hand, has produced a slew of well-known controversies that have resulted in public condemnation and firings. Some of the most heinous SNL scandals have resulted in lifetime bans. Some SNL controversies were caused by guests hosts or musicians who tried to spread their message using the show’s platform, while others involved full-time SNL cast members who torpedoed their own careers.
Celebrities With Controversial SNL Appearances Through The Years
Sinéad O’Connor
On October 3, 1992, perhaps the most contentious episode of Saturday Night Live history occurred. Following a performance of Bob Marley’s “War,” musical guest Sinéad O’Connor tore a photo of Pope John Paul II to shreds and said, “fight the real enemy,” referring to the Catholic Church’s ongoing sexual abuse allegations. O’Conner’s gesture not only stunned audiences and sparked record burnings, but it also caught producers off guard, as O’Conner had kept the gesture hidden during rehearsals. Even though history has proven that O’Conner’s allegations against the church were true, she has been banned from SNL ever since.
Sinéad O’Connor
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody, wearing dreadlocks and speaking in a fake Jamaican accent, improvised an introduction for Jamaican artist Sean Paul while hosting a 2003 episode. Producer Lorne Michaels slammed the brakes on Brody, banning him for making an unintentional racist joke.
Adrien Brody
Rage Against The Machine
The band Rage Against the Machine was banned before even finishing an episode. In 1996, they were kicked out of SNL’s Rockefeller Center studios after only performing one of their two scheduled songs. Why? The first song was performed in front of an upside-down American flag. To be fair to the band, their use of the American flag as part of their stage show was well-established by the time SNL booked them, as seen in the above photo from Woodstock 1994.
Rage Against The Machine
Martin Lawrence
The host Martin Lawrence’s monologue on February 19, 1994, sparked outrage due to numerous uncouth references to female hygiene. In subsequent airings, the offending segment was replaced with a voiceover from writer Jim Downey, who stated that the excised “…was a frank and lively presentation, and nearly cost us all our jobs.” Lawrence has never appeared on the series again.
Martin Lawrence
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs lit a joint on stage during a 1994 appearance on Saturday Night Live to commemorate the rap group’s first appearance on the show. Needless to say, it was also their final appearance. Who would have thought that doing such a thing on live TV would get them banned on the show?
Cypress Hill
Steven Seagal
It’s unclear what made Steven Seagal “hard to work” during his 1991 hosting stint, but he’s never been allowed back on Saturday Night Live. Moreover, during an on-air monologue with Nicholas Cage in 1992, Lorne Michaels referred to Seagal as the biggest jerk to ever host the show.
Steven Seagal
The Replacements
The Replacements, a legendary Minneapolis punk band, were set to break into the mainstream when they were booked for a 1986 appearance on Saturday Night Live, but they blew it. Rolling Stone reports that the ‘Mats (as fans call them) “got drunk, said the f-word just off mic during their first song, switched clothes for their second, and rang up $1100 in hotel damages.” Lorne Michaels was so furious with the band that he wanted to ban all artists from Warner Brothers Records as a form of retaliation. The ban was eventually limited to The Replacements.
The Replacements
Andy Kaufman
Andy Kaufman was one of the most frequent guests on Saturday Night Live in its early years. By 1982, however, Kaufman’s divisive stage act had made him a highly divisive figure. In response, in January 1983, the show held a phone-in poll in which viewers could vote on whether Andy should be “kept” or “dumped.” Despite the fact that many cast members campaigned for the “keep” option, “dump Andy” won with 195,544 votes to “keep’s” 169,186.
Andy Kaufman
Robert Blake
In 1982, actor Robert Blake was barred from ever appearing on SNL again after tearing up an unsatisfactory script and throwing it at writer Gary Kroeger’s feet while preparing to host an episode. Blake’s banning appears to have been for the best, given that he was later charged with murdering his wife in 2001.
Robert Blake
Fear
On the Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live in 1981, the California punk band Fear decided to do something different. They enlisted a group of slam dancers to mosh in front of the stage while they performed (including actor and SNL alum John Belushi, who had gotten the gig for the group). Things quickly spiraled out of control, and the set had been damaged to the tune of $20,000 to $40,000 by the end of their performance. Fear was never allowed to return to the show.
Fear
Milton Berle
Milton Berle had already established himself as a television legend by 1979. That didn’t make the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live like him anymore. Berle’s improvised monologues, musical performance, and pre-planned standing ovation irritated those on the show, particularly Lorne Michaels, who banned Berle and banned the episode from syndication for over 20 years.
Milton Berle
Frank Zappa
Rocker Frank Zappa was asked back to host the show in 1978 after a successful performance as a musical guest in 1976. To say his show was a disaster would be an understatement. “The Frank Zappa show was like one of the worst ever,” according to one of the show’s writers. Ouch. Zappa was never asked to return.
Frank Zappa
Charles Grodin
Actor and television host Charles Grodin missed several rehearsals in the week leading up to his October 1977 hosting gig. Needless to say, he was unprepared for the live broadcast as a result. He mispronounced lines, messed up the timing of several sketches, and even forgot the show was on the air (no word on whether he remembered it was Saturday night). Grodin was never asked to return.
Charles Grodin
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello defied his record company (who wanted him to play the single “Less Than Zero”) and instead broke into the song “Radio Radio” on Saturday Night Live in 1977, providing one of the most famous musical moments in the show’s history. Costello’s stunt, while entertaining, did not go over well with producers who were caught off guard. Costello was banned from SNL for more than a decade, but he has since returned and even mocked the incident on the 25th Anniversary Special.
Elvis Costello
Ashlee Simpson
In 2004, Ashlee Simpson performed the most famous Irish Jig in television history on Saturday Night Live. After a tape of her song “Pieces of Me” – complete with vocals – began playing over the intro to her second song, the pop starlet broke into the awkward dance, revealing that her earlier performance had been lip-synced. Simpson initially blamed the error on her band, then on acid reflux, but the damage had already been done to her reputation. She came back to SNL in 2005 but hasn’t appeared since.
Ashlee Simpson
Andrew Dice Clay
Lorne Micheals’ decision to have comedian Andrew Dice Clay host a 1990 episode of the show sparked outrage even before it aired. Women’s groups protested, cast members were upset (for more information, see the next slide), and NBC insisted on a 7-second delay to ensure that any profanities could be censored. Clay stuck to the script in the end, and the episode was rather dull, but he was never invited back.
Andrew Dice Clay
Nora Dunn
Nora Dunn was allegedly blacklisted from SNL as a result of Andrew Dice Clay’s appearance. The five-year series regular boycotted Clay’s appearance, and as a result, he was left out of the following episode, the season finale, and was fired. According to Jon Lovitz, plans to release Dunn were in the works before the Dice Clay incident: “It’s the last show of the season. Nora… she caused a lot of trouble. [She] was very hard to get along with, and they weren’t going to ask her back, anyway… and this is how the press works. And I’m telling you I’m on the inside of this. They don’t know the story. It’s like she’s just doing it to get press. It’s her last hurrah. They’re not asking her back onto the show.”
Nora Dunn
Donald Trump
Donald Trump hosted SNL in the midst of his 2016 presidential campaign, which was controversial. Cast members were enraged by what they perceived to be an implication that they were endorsing Trump as a candidate, and political groups questioned whether Trump’s appearance violated equal time laws. Trump hasn’t appeared since and given the show’s treatment of him since his inauguration, it’s unlikely he’ll return anytime soon.
Donald Trump
Kanye West
Kanye West’s 2018 appearance as a musical guest turned into a minor controversy when he wore a Donald Trump “MAGA” cap for his second song and went on a “pro-Trump” rant that didn’t air live but was captured on camera by Chris Rock and posted to Instagram. In the weeks that followed, cast members such as Pete Davidson and Kenan Thompson were critical of West’s appearance.
Kanye West
Adam Sandler
In the mid-1990s, Adam Sandler was one of the most popular SNL stars. Lorne Michaels, on the other hand, fired him in 1995 despite this. Over the next 25 years, Sandler went on to become one of the most successful and bankable movie stars of all time, but he always seemed to have a grudge against SNL. Sandler returned to hosting in 2019, and his opening monologue summed up his feelings perfectly: “Yeah, I was fired, I was fired, NBC said that I was done. Then I made over 4 billion dollars at the box office, so I guess you could say I won.”
Adam Sandler
Charles Rocket
Charles Rocket performed with actress Charlene Tilton in a parody of the latter’s hit series Dallas during a 1981 episode. During the sketch, Rocket dropped an F-Bomb, signaling the end of his time on Saturday Night Live.
Charles Rocket
Sam Kinison
NBC edited several unapproved jokes out of a 1986 appearance by standup comic Sam Kinison, including one about the crucifixion and another about drugs that went, out of the show’s west coast airing. The joke went like this: “You can’t get any more pot. If you give us back the pot, we’ll forget the crack.”
Sam Kinison
System Of A Down
System of a Down guitarist Darren Malakian let out an impromptu yell of “F*** YEAH!” midway through a 2005 performance of their song B.Y.O.B., which slipped past NBC’s censors and aired on the east coast, though it was edited out of airings on the west coast. Producers were enraged by the incident, which landed the band in hot water.
System Of A Down
Shane Gillis
Shane Gillis has the dubious distinction of having been banned from Saturday Night Live before even appearing on the show. Videos of the comedian using racist and homophobic slurs surfaced just hours after his hiring was announced. He was fired right away.
Shane Gillis
Jenny Slate
Jenny Slate debuted on Saturday Night Live in September 2009… Her tenure was doomed by an incident on her very first episode. Slate dropped an F-Bomb during a sketch that used the word “friggin” a lot. At the end of the season, she was “pulled back” from future episodes and fired.
Jenny Slate
Claudine Longet
Claudine Longet never appeared on Saturday Night Live, but she is at the center of one of the show’s most heated debates. She is accused of shooting and killing skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich in 1976. SNL aired a sketch with stock footage of falling skiers overdubbed with gunshots titled “The Claudine Longet Invitational” a few weeks after the murder. Longet’s lawyer issued a cease-and-desist, the show issued a public apology, and the sketch was pulled.
Claudine Longet
Fred Armisen
Many people chastised cast member Fred Armisen for impersonating New York’s then-legally blind governor David Paterson in the early 2010s. Armisen’s impersonation frequently included him wandering into and out of view of the camera, prompting some to criticize the show for mocking the disabled. Paterson appeared in a sketch with Armisen on the show in 2010.
Fred Armisen
Pete Davidson
We could write an entire gallery about Pete Davidson’s controversies, but the most notable SNL-related one occurred in 2018, when he said of congressman Dan Crenshaw (who lost an eye in Iraq), “You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie.” The quote drew a barrage of criticism, prompting Crenshaw to appear on the following week’s show and receive an apology from Davidson in person.
Pete Davidson
Matthew Broderick, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Dennis Miller, & Jon Lovitz
Matthew Broderick, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Dennis Miller, and Jon Lovitz all appeared in a sketch with Matthew Broderick in 1988. During the sketch, the foursome was on a nudist beach and said the word “penis” over 40 times. According to writer William Clotworthy, “We knew we’d hear from the public, and did we! The sketch generated 46 thousand letters of complaint. 45,999 were form letters sent to Reverend Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association…”
Matthew Broderick, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Dennis Miller, & Jon Lovitz
Larry David
Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) got into hot water in 2017 for a monologue joke he made while hosting. During the Holocaust, David, who is Jewish, made a joke about hitting on women in a concentration camp. The joke was “offensive, insensitive & unfunny all at the same time.” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Larry David
Gal Gadot
Gal Gadot made a guest appearance with a Wonder Woman lookalike character in what turned out to be a classic Kate McKinnon skit. Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon, two lost-at-sea ladies, launched the WW parody on an important journey. They decided they wouldn’t make it home after docking their boat on the island, so Themyscira was the next best option. They were met with a big let-down after hoping to find more women of the same orientation, but not before Gal planted a big smooch on Kate.
Gal Gadot
Katy Perry
Katy Perry was portraying a children’s library volunteer who was chastised for her inappropriate attire. The Bronx Beat ladies, played by Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler, carried the rest of the skit, and were, of course, the source of the comedy in the act. But then Maya pointed out the obvious… “Who cares if kids are looking at boobs?”. She continued, “Boobs feed babies…I turned on CSI the other night, and there’s a dead guy with a worm in his eye. But we can’t look at the tops of boobs?”
Katy Perry