saturday night live

Billie Eilish Leads A Twerk-Filled Update To The Story Of Jesus’ Birth In A ‘SNL’ Sketch

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Last night, for the second time in her career, Billie Eilish brought her talents to Saturday Night Live. The last time she appeared, back in 2019, she defied gravity with a performance of “Bad Guy.” This time around, the singer signed on as both musical guest and host. In one sketch, the singer and cast member Heidi Gardner joined forces to update the story of Jesus’ birth.

The sketch was entitled “Hip-Hop Nativity,” and it found the two recruiting a group of actors to play many of the characters from the biblical story. They taught them how to twerk, strut, and pole dance. The actors initially raises issues over the biblical update, but they eventually went along with it. The closing bit also jokingly revealed that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda will direct a full-length film version of Billie and Gardner’s updated nativity story.

In addition to the “Hip-Hop Nativity” skit, Billie also performed “Happier Than Ever” and “Male Fantasy” on SNL. The former made for an epic performance while the latter was a bit darker and relaxed.

In non-Eilish SNL news, the episode also featured Kate McKinnon returning as Dr. Fauci while Weekend Update skewered Jussie Smollett and the torching of the Fox News Christmas tree.

You can watch Billie’s Hip-Hop Nativity sketch in the video above.

‘SNL’ Emulates Post Malone, Miley Cyrus, And More With Help From Ed Sheeran In Their ‘Dionne Warwick Talk Show’ Sketch

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Ed Sheeran stopped by Saturday Night Live for a pair of performances on the late-night show, to celebrate the release of his fourth album =. After he tested positive for coronavirus, many worried that would be unable to perform. Luckily, that was not the case, as he delivered performances of “Shivers” and “Overpass Graffiti.” He also appeared in a sketch for SNL’s edition of The Dionne Warwick Talk Show, with Ego Nwodim as the legendary singer.

The sketch began with Chloe Fineman, who played Miley Cyrus, sitting across from Nwodim. Kieran Culkin, who appeared as Jason Mraz and hosted the episode, and Pete Davidson, who appeared as Post Malone, also sat down on the talk show. But Nwodim’s Warwick seemed to be bored by the guests and said, “I’m sick and tired of interviewing people who aren’t icons.” She then welcomed the real Dionne Warwick onto the show.

“Let me ask you something,” Nwodim says after Warwick takes a seat. “Dionne, why are you perfect?” The 80-year-old singer replied, “My darling, I’m not perfect. I’m just very, very good.” The duo then sang a duet of Warwick’s 1966 track “What The World Needs Now Is Love.”

Warwick thanked SNL for inviting her to the show afterward.

“I had fun at @nbcsnl,” she tweeted. “Thank you to @eggy_boom (ME [laughing emoji]), @Punkiejohnson (as @BrittaniWarrick), and to the writers, cast, and crew. I had a wonderful time with you all.”

You can watch the sketch in the video above.

Taylor Swift And Saweetie Are Set To Perform On ‘Saturday Night Live’ In November

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So far, it’s been a big day in Saturday Night Live musical guest news. This morning, Ed Sheeran revealed that he will be able to perform on the show as planned following his positive COVID test. Now, not only has SNL confirmed the news, but they’ve also revealed their next two musical guests after Sheeran: Taylor Swift and Saweetie.

Swift will guest on the November 13 episode hosted by Jonathan Majors, while Saweetie will perform on the Simu Liu-hosted episode on November 20.

This will be Saweetie’s first time on the program. As for Swift, she’s an SNL veteran. Her first stint as musical guest came in 2009, and her upcoming performance will be her fourth. In her second 2009 episode, Swift had the rare honor of serving most as host and musical guest.

Beyond SNL, both Swift and Saweetie have been thriving lately. Swift is fresh off her first performance at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, where she was on hand to induct Carole King. As for Saweetie, she recently had her own McDonald’s meal and her Netflix special Sex: Unzipped premiered just a few days ago.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Young Thug Brings ‘Punk’ To ‘SNL’ With Electric Performances Of ‘Tick Tock’ And ‘Love You More’

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The music world is currently enjoying Young Thug’s second album Punk as the rapper released it on Friday. He first announced the project two years ago, which came less than a week after he released his debut So Much Fun. After previewing songs at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival and during his NPR Tiny Desk, the rapper released Punk with just a slight delay. To further promote the project, Young Thug brought his talents to Saturday Night Live for a pair of electric performances.

Thug started the night with a brief performance of “Tick Tock,” the promotional single the rapper released prior to Punk. It came with the presence of a live band that featured Travis Barker on drums who ended it with an energetic drum solo. Later on in the night, Thug returned to the stage to perform “Love You More” with Gunna as well as Nate Ruess from the bands Fun and The Format. Travis Barker was also on drums for this performance while Ruess covered the song’s hook and Gunna delivered a verse of his own.

Altogether, Punk presents 20 songs and additional appearances from Drake, Future, J. Cole, Travis Scott, Gunna, Doja Cat, T-Shyne, Bslime, Post Malone, ASAP Rocky, Lil Double 0, and Jeff Bashker.

You can watch the performances in the videos above.

Punk is out now via 300 Entertainment/Atlantic Records. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Machine Gun Kelly Plots His Revenge On Pete Davidson For His ‘SNL’ Impression

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This past weekend’s Kim Kardashian-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live was eventful. A major part of that was due to references to Kardashian’s famous connections, like when she joked about her Kanye West divorce in the opening monologue. The sketch in which she played her sister Kourtney in a judge TV show called The People’s Kourt was a goldmine for cultural references and connections, even outside of Kardashian’s realm.

For example, there was a scene where Pete Davidson impersonated his good friend (and recent SNL musical guest) Machine Gun Kelly. In the sketch, Davidson and Chloe Fineman (playing Megan Fox) poke fun at Kelly and Fox’s frequent and intense PDA with a tongue-entwining kissing display.

Naturally, Kelly caught wind of the sketch and started plotting his revenge. In a tweet tagging Saturday Night Live, Kelly re-shared a clip of Davidson’s impression and wrote, “i think it’s time for me to come on the show as Pete.”

Meanwhile, a month ago, Davidson revisited a moment from Kelly’s aforementioned SNL appearance, when he and Kelly fell off the stage together during the episode’s closing credits. Davidson explained to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that Kelly tried to pick him up, which, due to an injury Kelly was going with, didn’t exactly work out.

Kim Kardashian Joked About Her Divorce From Kanye West In Her ‘SNL’ Monologue

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We’re now into the second week of the 47th season of Saturday Night Live, and for this week’s episode, Kim Kardashian took on the hosting duties while Halsey arrived as the show’s musical guest. Kim, along with the rest of her family, are by far one of the most recognizable names in entertainment as they’ve amassed a huge following through several endeavors in the worlds of business, reality television, and more. Kardashian is no stranger to being on camera, so it’s no surprise that she delivered an entertaining and comical monologue to open the show.

One of the highlights came when she joked about her divorce from Kanye West. “I’ve been very blessed in this life, and I’m grateful for everything, honestly, all the ups, all the downs,” she said. “I mean, I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America, a talented, legit genius, who gave me four incredible kids. So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”

She continued, “I know it sounds mean, but people keep telling me that comedy comes from truth. And if there’s one thing that I always strive to be, it’s genuine.”

Kardashian also joked about her family’s failed political campaigns, that being Kanye’s run for president and Caitlyn Jenner’s run for governor of California, as well as being “much more than that reference photo my sisters showed their plastic surgeons.”

You can watch the full monologue in the video above.

Kid Cudi Was Comfortable Wearing A Dress On ‘SNL’ Despite Knowing ‘It Would Piss Some People Off’

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Months after sharing his most recent album, Man On The Moon III: The Chosen, Kid Cudi brought his talents to Saturday Night Live for a pair of performances. During the show, he performed “Sad People” and “Tequila Shots”, and while fans were happy to catch a live set from the rapper, Cudi’s decision to wear a dress while he rapped “Sad People” caught a lot of attention. It was designed by Virgil Abloh and made to resemble the dress Kurt Cobain famously once wore on the show. During a recent episode of LeBron James’ HBO show, The Shop: Uninterrupted, the rapper explained why he wore it and how it all came together.

“SNL comes my way, so I immediately thought like, oh this would be the perfect opportunity to wear a dress,” he revealed on the show. “But, do I go to a store and just buy something off the rack, or do I go get somebody to make me some sh*t?”

After looking around for the perfect dress, he decided that having one customized for him would be the better move.

“I was at this point where I was looking on my phone, kind of looking at all these different stores and looking at dresses,” he added. “I was just like, this is cute, this is cute. And then I finally realized, yo, I’m gonna get Virgil to do this. I’m gonna see if he has time, ‘cause he’s crazy [busy], he’s got a lot of things he’s doing.” He continued, “And he hit me right back and was like, ‘Yes, let’s go. I got prints, what you want?’ I was like, alright, I want something floral, like a sundress. He’s like, ‘Perfect.’ He sent me prints like two seconds later. He had them sh*ts on deck.

Cudi was also asked if he was worried about the possible backlash in response to him wearing the dress, but the rapper made it clear that he was not.

I’ve never been someone who’s like thinking about the backlash. I don’t give a f*ck about what anyone thinks. You can’t when you’re doing this sh*t. I knew it would piss some people off, but I love that. Because hip-hop is so weird about sh*t. I’ve already seen people making YouTube videos where they’re just strictly talking about me and this dress. Like grown men angry, grown Black men angry. ‘He’s doing something against men and masculinity, it’s a big thing going on…’ And I just be like, yo, this is so funny, this is crazy that I’ve stirred it up like this.

You can watch a clip of Cudi talking about the dress in the video above.

Lil Nas X Discusses His ‘SNL’ Wardrobe Malfunction On ‘The Tonight Show’: ‘Boom, I Feel Air’

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Last weekend, Lil Nas X enjoyed one of the biggest moments of his young music career when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. One of the songs he performed was his hit “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” but that didn’t go without incident: While dancing, he ripped his pants. He later addressed the incident, writing on Twitter, “i know i do a lot of planned sh*t but ripping my pants on live television is not one of them.” Now, he has discussed the performance in greater depth, chatting with Jimmy Fallon (and guest host Dave Grohl) on The Tonight Show.

He broke down what was going through his head when it happened, saying:

“I was pretty much going down the pole, you know, doing my little sexy drop-down, and boom: I feel air. I was like, ‘OK, there’s definitely a breeze going on.’ And I also feel, like, some popping still happening while I was down there. I was like, ‘Oh god, I hope it’s not…’ I was like, ‘Just please don’t be on TV already,’ you know? And SNL is actually live, so… You know what the worst part is? At the end of the performance, the dancers are supposed to touch me and tug on me or whatever, and they were tugging on the pants, and I was like, ‘Please stop.’ […] I couldn’t say it because I would ruin the performance, like, ‘Guys, stop, please,’ but I couldn’t say it.”

Elsewhere during the interview, Fallon showed a clip of Lil Nas X’s dress rehearsal performance, so the world could see what the rapper’s choreography would have looked like had it not been thrown off course.

Check out the interview above.

Lil Nas X Accidentally Ripped His Pants Performing ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ On ‘SNL’

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Lil Nas X has done it all in the less than two years since his 2019 breakout moment. The singer has two Grammy awards to his name, the record for most consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart, and the most certified single in music history.

Despite the long list of achievements and milestones, prior to this weekend, one thing that Lil Nas hadn’t done yet was appear on Saturday Night Live. All of that changed last night when the singer stepped onto the Studio 8H stage to perform “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and “Sun Goes Down.”

The singer kicked off the night with a performance of the ever-so-controversial “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” Sticking with the fiery theme of the song’s music video, Lil Nas danced and sang in front of a backdrop of hell that even featured a stripper pole for him to dance on.

Unfortunately, as he danced on the pole, Lil Nas accidentally ripped his pants in what proved to be a funny SNL moment. Afterward, he spoke about the wardrobe malfunction on Twitter. “I know i do a lot of planned sh*t but ripping my pants on live television is not one of them,” he wrote.

Lil Nas X would push past this potentially embarrassing TV moment and return to the SNL stage to end the night with a performance on “Sun Goes Down.”

You can watch the performances in the videos above.

Miley Cyrus Covered Dolly Parton And Performed With The Kid Laroi On ‘SNL’

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As she’s done numerous times in her career over the last decade, Miley Cyrus once again found herself on the Saturday Night Live stage this weekend. Her gig as the show’s musical guest made for the singer’s sixth appearance on SNL. Thanks to this episode’s host, none other than Elon Musk, who had many viewers ready for some potential Dogecoin chatter, all eyes were on last night’s episode. Rather than the usual pair of performances that musical guests offer when they appear on the show, Cyrus blessed the audience with three songs last night.

She began the night with a cover of her godmother Dolly Parton’s “Light Of A Clear Blue Morning” for the show’s cold open. Rather than the typical sketch for the open, SNL cast members showed love to their moms with warm messages during the segment. “Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and this is for all the moms out there,” Cyrus said before delivering the cover.

Later in the show, she brought out The Kid Laroi to perform their new collaboration, “Without You,” a track that was remixed with a new verse from Cyrus last week. Lastly, to bring and end to the night, Cyrus returned one last time for a solo performance of “Plastic Hearts,” the title track from her 2020 album.

You can watch all of Miley’s performances in the videos above.