Saturday Night Live: Bad Bunny kicks off 51st season

He jokes that some of his celebrity guests at the show were on drugs, and without naming any names plays a clip of Mad Men star Jon Hamm looking “well refreshed” while dancing in a bucket hat and a tropical two-piece.

Hamm’s actually in the audience for the monologue – in the same outfit, and Bad Bunny jokes he’s actually “Juan Jamon.”

Bad Bunny then speaks in Spanish about his excitement about playing next year’s Super Bowl, before adding: “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”

Tonight’s Saturday Night Live opens with a sketch spoofing “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth’s recent meeting with top generals to discuss rebranding the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”

Colin Jost plays Hegseth, yelling about how “our military is gay as hell.” His monologue is interrupted by James Austin Johnson as Trump, cutting in to claim that the real threat to America is “late night television.”

Federal immigration agents may be present at February‘s Super Bowl, where Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny will perform at halftime, according to a top Trump administration advisor.

“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else,” Department of Homeland advisor Corey Lewandowski said during an interview aired Wednesday with Benny Johnson’s The Benny Show.

“We will find you,” he continued. “We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you. So know that that is a very real situation under this administration, which is completely contrary to what how it used to be.”

Saturday Night Live star Emil Wakim is the latest cast member to announce their departure from the show.

The comedian, 27, joined the cast of SNL in 2024 for its 50th season, often appearing in the “Weekend Update” segment or performing stand-up bits as himself or various characters. In one memorable December segment, he played Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

However, Wakim is now leaving SNL after only one season. “I won’t be returning to SNL next year. It was a gut-punch of a call to get, but I’m so grateful for my time there,” he wrote on Instagram Wednesday, while sharing some behind-the-scenes photos from the NBC set.

Aimee Lou Wood says that she does not regret calling out Saturday Night Live for their sketch mocking her appearance in The White Lotus.

In April, shortly after her season of The White Lotus was released, the US variety show saw comedian Sarah Sherman imitating Wood in a skit parodying the hit HBO series.

Wood called out the sketch after it aired, describing its depiction of her as “mean and unfunny”.

In a new interview, Lou Wood said she didn’t regret addressing the sketch publicly and standing up for herself.

“I don’t regret saying it because it was breaking a pattern, which is what I would usually do – what I did when I was younger and got bullied,” she told BBC News.

Bad Bunny gave fans a sneak peek at one of his costumes for Saturday Night Live in an Instagram Story, where he appears to be getting a wig installed by the hair and makeup team.

“SNL esta noche,” the musician wrote in the story.

Saturday Night Live star Michael Che has revealed that Kanye West apologized to him years later for a dig he made during his 2018 appearance on the show.

The controversial 48-year-old rapper — now the subject of the new documentary In Whose Name? — appeared on the long-running NBC sketch series as a guest performer.

During the episode, West went off on an unscripted rant, telling the audience at one point: “You can’t always have, every time you have a Black subject matter like [Bill] Cosby, that you have to have a Black comedian talking about him.”

Appearing Thursday on SiriusXM’s radio show The Bonfire, Che was questioned by host Robert Kelly whether that was “the last time you talked to [West]” or if they’ve talked since.

“No, actually. And that’s another reason why I don’t really like talking about it,” Che said. “Because the next time I saw him was years later, I remember. It was the Eddie Murphy show, and every Black person in Hollywood was at this show. Like, literally. It was crazy. It was people that had never came to SNL.”

Che remembered: “I’m walking through the hallway and [Kanye’s] coming out the elevator bay and as soon as he sees me, he goes, ‘I owe you an apology.’

“And I hadn’t seen him in years. I didn’t even know if he remembered that that happened because he was saying so much. And he was like, ‘I owe you an apology.’ And we talked and I was like, I never brought it up again.”

Five new cast members are joining familiar faces on this season of Saturday Night Live

Tommy Brennan, a stand-up comedian

Jeremy Culhane, an actor and improv comic

Ben Marshall, a member of Please Don’t Destroy

Kam Patterson, a stand-up comedian

Veronika Slowikowska, an actress and comedian known for her online sketch show

They will join the current cast: Kenan Thompson, Colin Jost, Michael Che, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, James Austin Johnson, Marcello Hernández, Chloe Fineman, and Andrew Dismukes.

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has insisted that Donald Trump’s presidency will not have a chilling effect on political comedy — and downplayed the notion that Stephen Colbert’s firing was an act of censorship.

In an interview with the online news site Puck, the “famously elusive” 80-year-old TV magnate opened up about the future of TV comics under a president who has repeatedly sued or even threatened to shut down media outlets that displeased him.

“Whatever crimes Trump is committing, he’s doing it in broad daylight,” Michaels said. “There is absolutely nothing that the people who vote for him—or me—don’t know. You know what I mean?