Saturday Night Live: Padma Lakshmi Makes Surprise Cameo

Saturday Night Live's newest episode saw Padma Lakshmi making a surprise appearance!

By Nick Valdez

Saturday Night Live was hosted by Nate Bergatze, and one of the early sketches featured a surprise cameo from Padma Lakshmi for her expertise with cooking competition shows! Padma Lakshmi announced earlier this year that she would be leaving her hosting duties with Bravo's Top Chef series with 20 seasons and 17 years of the gig under her belt, but the icon will continue to make a stamp on the food, travel, and entertainment industries. This is even extended to shows like Saturday Night Live as the famous host made a surprising cameo during a food competition sketch that quickly went a surprise direction. 

Saturday Night Live's newest episode saw host Nate Bargatze competing in a series called "Chef Showdown" where the theme was soul foods, and Bargatze secretly made better food than who the judges had expected. It was here that Padma Lakshmi was surprisingly called in to reveal the slate of prizes for the winner, only to find out that the person she thought had one wasn't the winner at all. Maybe she can move into a full Saturday Night Live host role in the future? 

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(Photo: NBC Universal)

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. 

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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. 

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