Justin Bieber's Relentless Entourage, Adrien Brody's Dreadlock Fiasco, And 9 More Times Celebrities Were Rude, Offensive, Or Disrespectful On 'Saturday Night Live'
No matter your opinions on Saturday Night Live, it's pretty undeniable that having a fully live show every week is an impressive feat. And this is definitely due to the cast and crew's hectic but effective work schedule, with the whole thing being overseen by head producer Lorne Michaels, who has been running the show since its inception in 1975. But despite its magnitude and place in the culture, it definitely does not always go off without a hitch — and this is often due to the celebrity guests.
After last Saturday, when musical guest Morgan Wallen sparked a ton of backlash for walking offstage during the credits (very unusual for SNL), I thought it'd be worth looking back on some more stars who made waves for their behavior when on the show. So, I've rounded up 11 celebrity guests on SNL who were accused of being disrespectful, offensive, or just plain rude. Let's jump in!
1. Chevy Chase
Now, if you know anything about the Foul Play star and SNL cast alumnus Chevy Chase, this one's definitely not surprising, given a series of super controversial incidents that occurred while he was still a regular player, including when he said the n-word in a 1975 word association skit. Despite his contentious reputation, however, Chevy was invited back to host the show eight times. This resulted in even more shocking moments that would eventually lead to Lorne Michaels, SNL 's producer, never inviting the former Weekend Update anchor to return as host after the late '90s.
Chevy's first time hosting the show was in 1978, and the episode was reportedly preceded by a fistfight breaking out backstage between Chevy and cast member Bill Murray. On another occasion, he reportedly made some pretty disgusting homophobic comments to Terry Sweeney, the only openly gay cast member in 1985. However, the final incident was in 1997 when he slapped cast member Cheri Oteri on the back of the head during rehearsals. Will Ferrell, a cast member at the time, reported the incident to Lorne, and Chevy never returned to host again.
2. Paris Hilton
This one surprised the SNL crew at the time, as head writer at the time Tina Fey has said that they invited Paris on to host in 2005 because they thought 'maybe she'll be fun.' But according to Tina (who made some pretty offensive and transphobic remarks about Paris on The Howard Stern Show in 2006), Paris 'took herself super seriously,' refused to do sketches, and 'wouldn't come out of her dressing room.' And while Tina's comments about Paris's hair extensions do reek of early 2000s internalized misogyny, it sounds like Paris was definitely not the ideal host to work with.
3. Sinéad O'Connor
NBC
Sinéad is our first musical guest on the list. Her actions during her performance led to her reportedly being iced out by the host on the night, Tim Robbins. If you don't remember, the 1992 performance featured Sinéad changing the lyrics of Bob Marley's 'War' to protest against the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. The Irish singer even ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II in half as part of her protest. The incident was condemned as offensive by many Catholic viewers, and Sinéad was never invited back.
4. Justin Bieber
Back in 2013, Justin was invited onto the show as both the host and the musical guest, but as recounted by Bill Hader, the star's time in rehearsals didn't go as planned. According to Bill, Justin had an entourage of people so big that it was almost impossible to collaborate with the star for sketches and rehearsals, which resulted in a less than stellar final episode, as deemed by many viewers.
5. Donald Trump
The current president's hosting experience was undoubtedly controversial, as he appeared on the show in 2015 after announcing his presidential campaign. Many cast and crew on the show expressed discontent with the decision to bring Trump onto the show during his heavily criticized campaign, due to his offensive comments about women, immigrants, and the LGBTQIA+ community. Former SNL writer Michael Schur stated that allowing Trump as a host was a 'critical error' on the show's part.
6. Shane Gillis
One of the more recent controversies on our list, comedian Shane Gillis was invited to host the show in February 2024. However, if you think back to 2019, you might remember that Shane was initially hired as a regular player on SNL 's cast. But before he could take the stage, he was terminated after a series of offensive jokes targeting women, minorities, and the LGBTQIA+ community resurfaced and led to outrage over his casting. He was then invited back to host the show in 2024, and again in 2025, and both times he hosted, his monologue definitely didn't shy away from a couple more controversial jokes.
7. Kanye West
NBC / NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
This one's hard to forget. Back in 2018, Ye made headlines after he was featured as the musical guest on the show and went on an unplanned pro-Trump rant while wearing a MAGA hat. The speech was cut off by the show's allocated run time, but host Adam Driver could be seen looking super uncomfortable in the background. Cast member Kenan Thompson later said that the moment felt like being 'held hostage,' as Kanye talked about his own plans to run for president in 2020.
8. Rage Against the Machine
In fairness, what did Lorne expect when he invited famously anti-establishment band Rage Against the Machine alongside host Steve Forbes in 1996, a notorious billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate? The band members were kicked out of the building after they attempted to hang upside-down American flags in protest, and then, after they had the flags removed, they threw the cloth fragments of ripped flags at Steve and his entourage. The band has not been invited back to the show since, but to many viewers their behavior seemed pretty par for the course.
9. Adrien Brody
NBC
Remember this one? Lorne certainly does. Back in 2003, Adrien infamously shocked the cast and crew with a surprise impression that came across as pretty crude, due to his dreadlock wig and speaking in attempted Jamaican Patois. The worst part? He decided to debut his new 'character' while he was introducing Jamaican singer Sean Paul. Yiiiiiikes.
10. Elon Musk
Well, duh. After Elon was invited to host in 2021, there was a notable controversy in which cast member Chloe Fineman revealed that he had made her 'burst into tears' due to his rude behavior toward her backstage. 'I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions,' Chloe explained, directing her comments at Elon. 'You stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like: 'It's not funny.'' She went on to describe how Elon went through her draft line by line and told her how unfunny it was. Later, after Elon's super controversial salute, Chloe revealed that she did not regret calling him out on his actions at all.
11. Morgan Wallen
NBC / Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images
And finally, our most recent contender. On Saturday, the country singer made headlines after he was the episode's musical guest, but decided to forgo the usual hugs and pleasantries with the cast during the credits. He later posted an Instagram story that showed a jet, captioned 'Get me to God's country,' which stirred a LOT of discourse on social media. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, cast member Kenan voiced his perspective on the incident, confirming that he 'definitely saw' Morgan skedaddle off set. 'I don't know what goes through people's minds when they decide to do stuff like that,' Kenan said. 'I don't know if he understood the assignment or not, or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way.' He called it a 'spike in the norm,' and then mused that Morgan 'seems like a complicated individual.' Which is a very forgiving way to put it, I think.
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When she tells him the truth will make her happy, he spills everything about his embezzling. He also confesses that the Faberge Egg is a fake. Cupid winks at the camera. New episodes of The Librarians: The Next Chapter air on TNT on Mondays at 9 pm ET. New TV Shows This Week (June 8 – 14) Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
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Production designer Kalina Ivanov and visual effects supervisor Johnny Han also received assets from their Batman counterparts to help reconstruct sets like the Iceberg Lounge using VFX. Han went through all the dailies for The Batman and found shots of the Oz-run nightclub to use as plates, as in an image that can be used to replace a greenscreen backdrop. 'Dan Lemmon, a VFX supervisor on The Batman, also gave me a mini-backstory on every visual effects shot from the movie. It was such a nice handing of the torch,' says Han. The Batman (Robert Pattinson) oversees Gotham from above, and so Reeves and LeFranc decided that the Penguin would attempt to rule the underworld from below. 'They wanted to make The French Connection, which immediately grounded the project under bridges, overpasses and elevated subway tracks,' Ivanov says. 'We also went for very unusual geography, so we stayed away from Manhattan as much as we could.' 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Her then-driver, Oz, had already blown the whistle to the mob boss about his daughter's interactions with a member of the press, and so Carmine framed his daughter for the reporter's corresponding death and several other of his serial killings as 'The Hangman.' Tragically, the charitable woman who entered Arkham against her will left as someone else due to unnecessary electroshock therapy and generally inhumane circumstances. Upon release, one of her first orders of business was to slaughter the extended Falcone mob who aided Carmine's wrongful conviction of her. 'One of the worst feelings in the world is the feeling of being disposable, and that's what happens to Sofia on such a massive level,' says Milioti. 'I hoped that the audience would be on her side when she blossoms into this full villain because you really understand why she does what she does.' Helen Shaver — who directed Sofia's origin story and present-day takeover of her father's crime ring in the John McCutcheon-penned fourth episode 'Cent'Anni' — says the filming of the rather harrowing chapter was the polar opposite of what one might expect. 'The opportunity to make that terrible betrayal by Oz and Carmine the bedrock from which this iconic character grows was very joyful,' Shaver shares. 'As great as the Penguin is, Sofia makes him a greater character.' To make matters worse for Sofia, the one person who refuses to turn their back on her, her brother, Alberto, disappears. Despite initially suspecting that Oz was involved, his subsequent death is pinned on the rival Maroni family, courtesy of Oz and Victor's machinations, in the series premiere. Moments before her grisly discovery of Alberto's body, Sofia tortures an unclothed Oz, which tested Marino's team to the nth degree, significantly upping the already three-hour prosthetic application time. 'The daytime is the hardest difficulty for a prosthetic. Any flaws can be seen in daylight,' recalls Marino. 'Colin was wearing this totally naked suit that's covered in hair and scars, and he was sweating in a burning hot greenhouse while tied up to a chair. It was the most challenging day.' Oz's opening chess move involving Alberto began an all-out war for control of Gotham's drug market with ever-changing alliances. Sofia eventually receives confirmation that Oz murdered her brother, and based on a tip from Oz's lover, Eve (Carmen Ejogo), she abducts Francis for leverage. Oz had previously pretended his mother was dead in order to protect her from the type of blowback that comes with his affiliations. With the help of Sofia's Arkham ally Dr. Rush (Theo Rossi), she gleans through Francis that Oz was responsible for the deaths of his older and younger brothers, Jack and Benny, in 1988. Oz is then forced to face the truth or else Sofia will maim his mother, but he still wouldn't come clean, leading Francis to stab him in the gut and forsake him before suffering a catastrophic stroke. 'Sofia understands that the gravest injury you can administer to someone is mental because you can't escape that,' says Milioti. Frustrated by his brothers' insensitivity to his clubfoot during a fateful game of hide-and-seek, Young Oz's lack of impulse control factored into his decision to trap Jack and Benny in a water overflow tunnel. This is the same impulsivity that led him to murder Alberto Falcone three-plus decades later. Farrell knows Young Oz is responsible for the demise of his brothers, but he offers him some benefit of the doubt, at least until he allows hours to go by without sounding the alarm to his mother. 'I'm not excusing him, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't an architectural fucking engineer when he was 10,' says Farrell. 'I don't think he necessarily knew that, in closing one sewer gate, it was going to be hermetically sealed and the water was going to rise twenty feet, killing his brothers.' Reeling from his mother's newly persistent vegetative state and how Sofia exposed his Achilles' heel through her, Oz decides that family of any kind is only going to hold him back from achieving true kingpin status. Thus, in the series' most gut-wrenching moment, he strangles Victor to death just after the young man expressed gratitude for their found family. 'He's always been this man. We've just been a little bit forgiving of him,' says LeFranc. 'When Oz kills Victor, it's like he's ripping his own heart out, and it's appalling. There's no justification for it. I hope that it leaves the audience to question why we ever trusted a man like this.' Farrell, despite being 'nowhere close' to starting prep work, will next reprise his character in the long-gestating The Batman Part II. He also notes it would be hard to reposition Oz as a protagonist in a potential Penguin season two after ruthlessly murdering the pure-hearted Victor and contributing to his own mother's unresponsiveness. 'I certainly think it makes [a second season] more difficult. [Killing Vic] is a very hard thing to claw back from,' says Farrell. 'It's not impossible, but it's a tougher hill to climb.' As for the physical impact the show had on him, one of the somewhat overlooked details in Farrell's performance is his Penguin-like waddle because of Oz's clubbed right foot. Farrell had to wear a supportive leg brace for full effect. 'I wasn't as smart as I could have been, which is not the first time I've said that in relation to work or life,' jokes Farrell. 'I did have some issues with my hips for a while, and my pelvis was a bit out of line, but I sorted it out afterward.' In an era where the limited series is cheekily referred to as the new pilot, Milioti is excited about her character's still-undetermined future, whether that's a Penguin season two, The Batman Part II or a Sofia-led series that explores a relationship with her recently revealed half-sister, Selina Kyle (The Batman's Zoë Kravitz). In the concluding moments of the finale, Sofia receives a letter from Selina, providing her with a glimmer of hope after Oz finagled her readmittance to Arkham. 'I would love to continue to play Sofia in any way,' says Milioti. 'I would also love to see Sofia and Selina team up and wreak complete and utter havoc on Gotham. I don't think we've ever seen that in the Batman universe.' A version of this story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. 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