Okay, well, Saturday Night Live decided to welcome back transphobic comedian Dave Chappelle, despite the amount of backlash the comedy show received for it the last time he was there.
Over the weekend, the sketch show welcomed host Dakota Johnson alongside musical guest Justin Timberlake and Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran. Right at the end, during everyone’s goodbyes, Chappelle showed up out of nowhere in a move that seemed to shock the cast just as much as the audience.
In fact, comedy legend Bowen Yang can be seen standing as far as he can possibly get away from Chappelle when he crashed the stage, and he and Sarah Sherman were seen presumably discussing their discomfort behind him.
For those unfamiliar, Chappelle came under some pretty intense fire from the LGBTQ+ communities for self-identifying as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, and for promoting nasty and homophobic rhetoric in his Netflix specials The Closer and The Dreamer.
We’re not sure what prompted this little visit from Chappelle, and we’re also not sure what will happen now because of it. Previously, writers on the show allegedly threatened to boycott it for letting the comedian host, which hasn’t happened since late 2022.
The last time he was on the show, neither Yang, Sherman, nor the non-binary casemate Molly Kearney were involved in that taping, which could also add to the shock Yang and Sherman experienced when Chapelle showed up unannounced.
Hard as the pill was to swallow, we’re proud of Yang for making it through the segment to the best of his abilities, and we’re just as hopeful another surprise appearance like that doesn’t catch any of us out of nowhere.
