Saturday Night Live: Ayo Edebiri Jokes About Controversial Jennifer Lopez Comments

In the hours before Saturday Night Live's latest episode, host Ayo Edebiri began to go viral for a not great reason. Just ahead of the episode's premiere comments that she made on a podcast appearance a few years ago began to gain traction online, largely because she was bad mouthing Jennifer Lopez, the musical guest for the episode of Saturday Night Live that she was hosting. While many weren't sure if this would be addressed at all on the series,  Ayo Edebiri was quick to not only make light of it all but to make it clear that what she said in the past was a young person that wasn't fully considering what they were putting out into the world.

During her appearance on the Scam Goddess podcast with Laci Mosley, Ayo Edebiri referred to Jennifer Lopez's "whole career" as "lone long scam." Her comments in full read: "Today I was actually thinking about one of my favorite scams of all time. Because JLo is performing at the Superbowl halftime show...Her whole career is one long scam...She thinks she's on multiple tracks, but it's not her. I think she thinks that she's still good even though like she's not singing for most of these songs. I was reading up because I became fascinated for myself. And a lot of the write ups to the song will be like 'JLo didn't have time to make it to the studio. JLo was busy.' It's like, doing what? Not singing obviously."

In the first full sketch on tonight's episode of Saturday Night Live the set-up for the event was a gameshow called "Why'd You Say It?', the bit being forcing people to read their controversial comments on Instagram and asking them "Why'd You Say It?" As the sketch reached its crescendo, Ayo Edebiri's character went into a big monologue, which was clearly a reference to her resurfaced comments about JLo. Her character said:

"Okay, we got it. It's wrong to leave mean comments or post comments just for clout or run your mouth on a podcast when you don't consider the impact because you're 24 and stupid. But I think I speak for everyone when I say from now on, we're gonna be a lot more thoughtful about what we post online." The comment was met with major cheers from the audience, clearly in on the subtext.

Who is in the Saturday Night Live cast?

Cast members for Saturday Night Live season 49 include almost the entire cast from season 48 of SNL. Returning stars include Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Punkie Johnson, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. Featured players that are part of the cast include returning stars Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker, plus the show's only fully new cast member for the year, newcomer Chloe Troast. The comedy troupe Please Don't Destroy, made up of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, are also a recurring part of the series. 

New Saturday Night Live Hosts

With the SAG-AFTRA Strike still without a resolution, Saturday Night Live is unable to tap actors to host new episodes since previously they would only appear on the series to promote some new work (prohibited by the rules of the SAG-AFTRA strike). As a result comedians and musicians have been the only hosts confirmed for Saturday Night Live season 49 with Pete Davidson, Bad Bunny, and Nate Bargatze taking the spotlight for the first three episodes.

Saturday Night Live Season 49 is ongoing now with new episodes airing on both NBC and Peacock, starting Saturdays at 11:30 PM ET. All 48  seasons of Saturday Night Live are also now streaming on Peacock.