A Taxonomy of Problematic SNL Hosts

Saturday Night Live has been in a real mood as of late, platforming a series of transphobic, right-wing, and racist personalities, and drawing the ire of audience members and employees alike. Dave Chappelle appearing on stage at the end of the Dakota Johnson-hosted episode was one thing, followed just a week later by a Nikki Haley cameo in the cold open. And in Lorne Michaels' most defiant decision yet, comedian Shane Gillis — who was fired from the show shortly after being hired, for his history of racist and homophobic remarks — will host the February 24, 2024 episode.

This isn't the first time that SNL has courted controversy by getting in bed with right-wing, reactionary, or racist people. For a show that places its own history on a pedestal so often (see every time the "Five-Timers Club" is invoked), you'd think they'd be more careful about which people they ask to host. These problematic hosts, over the years, have tended to fall into one of a few general categories. In sifting through the Trumps, Musks, and Dice Clays of the past, we can maybe get a better sense of where Gillis' hosting gig will end up in the eyes of history.

Politically Problematic Hosts

For all the politicians who show up on Saturday Night Live, far fewer have actually hosted than you might think. Memorable appearances by the likes of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin were all merely cameos. When politicians have actually been called upon to host, contrary to popular understanding of the show's liberal politics, it's primarily been Republicans. John McCain hosted in the show's 28th season, weeks before the 2002 midterm elections, although this was back when McCain was seen more as a George W. Bush antagonist than as Barack Obama's eventual 2008 opponent. Of course, the most notorious Republican presidential candidate called upon to host was Donald Trump, whose November 7, 2015 appearance came when he was running for the Republican nomination, having kicked off his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. Trump's hosting was controversial from the minute it was announced, and it would hang around the show's neck like a millstone throughout Trump's eventual presidency.

In the spring of 2021, SNL invited controversial billionaire Elon Musk to host the show. This was before Musk had purchased Twitter, but it was in the middle of Musk's move towards far-right politics. The Tesla and SpaceX founder had spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading misinformation about the virus and the public policies being enacted to combat it. At the time, Musk's hosting appearance was not only contentious among viewers and the media but among SNL cast members as well.

Buyer's Remorse

By far the most common flavor of problematic SNL host is the once-popular but now toxic public figure. The list of regrettable SNL hosts is long, including the likes of accused abusers like Kevin Spacey and disgraced athletic cheaters like Lance Armstrong. Like landmines, these hosts dot the landscape of the show's 46 seasons, including the four (!) times Louis C.K. hosted, starting in 2012. C.K. is a great example, because he's someone who was a Saturday Night Live favorite and actually delivered some great sketches over his four hosting appearances, even if it's now hard to look back on them with any kind of fondness.

That's similar to the way we look back at Rudy Giuliani on SNL. The former mayor of New York City, whose tenure as increasingly unhinged mouthpiece for Donald Trump has come to define his legacy, will forever be entwined with the history of Saturday Night Live due to his appearance on the first post-9/11 episode, when he comedically gave his "blessing" for the show to resume. By then he was already part of the SNL family, having hosted in November of 1997, including a scene with him dressed up as an old lady opposite Cheri Oteri's Rita Delvecchio.

You would think that Dave Chappelle would fall underneath this umbrella as well, having hosted the show three times, in 2016, 2020, and 2022. Considering the sharp turn Chappelle's comedy has taken in recent years in the direction of targeting the trans community, you might expect that producers would pump the breaks on having him host or make appearances. But Michaels keeps inviting Chappelle back to the show, most recently on the January 27th episode of this year, when Chappelle stood on stage during the goodbyes, while cast members like Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, and Molly Kearney stood conspicuously off to the side.

Why the F*ck Did They Think This Would Work?

Sometimes awful Saturday Night Live hosts are easy to see coming, mostly because it's a mystery whey they were ever booked in the first place. The operative question for this category is "Who thought this person would be funny??" The exception to this rule, and it's an important one, is professional athletes, who are successful often enough — and in unexpected ways — that we should offer blanket immunity whenever they're cast, because honestly who knows? The show that turned Charles Barkley into a beloved multi-time host deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to casting athletes. Politicians, on the other hand, deserve no such benefit. Sure, Al Gore became a more endearing figure after he left political office, but it's still pretty nuts that SNL tried to make a go of him as a host in December of 2002. But the all-time champion WTF choice for SNL host is now and will perhaps always will be Steve Forbes, the multi-millionaire magazine publisher who was running for the Republican nomination for President in 1996 and somehow ended up hosting Saturday Night Live that spring. Even among a Republican field led by Bob Dole, Forbes was known as the boring one, which made his casting feel like a practical joke on both the audience and that night's musical guests, the anarchist metal band Rage Against the Machine.

Hated by the Cast Members

Not all hosts who the audience ends up hating are hated by the cast and crew. But some sure are! Bill Hader has said publicly how much he didn't like working with Justin Bieber on the show, and Tina Fey has spoken in recent years about how Paris Hilton was terrible to work with when she hosted in 2005.

The choice to have Andrew Dice Clay host in 1990 was so controversial, due to his misogynistic comedy act, that cast member Nora Dunn boycotted the show in protest and multiple audience members heckled Clay during the show. Lorne Michaels hated Steven Seagal so much after he hosted in 1991 that he banned him from any future appearances, and even joked in a later episode with Nicolas Cage that Segal was the biggest jerk ever to host the show.

Actual Murderers

Yeah, so … it's hard to get much worse than the two actual murderers who hosted Saturday Night Live, although in the show's defense, they hadn't yet murdered anyone when they hosted. O.J. Simpson was a host in the show's third season, in February of 1978, just after he'd left the Buffalo Bills for the San Francisco 49ers, and 16 years before his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were murdered in Brentwood, CA. In 1982, the actor Robert Blake hosted Saturday Night Live, some 17 years before Bonnie Lee Bakley was murdered. Both Simpson and Blake were acquitted in criminal cases but found responsible for the deaths in civil cases. Regardless, probably a pair of hosts SNL would rather take back.

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.