Months after “Saturday Night Live” celebrated its 50th anniversary, things got back to normal at Studio 8H. Fresh off the news that he’s headlining the 2026 Super Bowl, Bad Bunny hosted the 51st season premiere, only months after closing out season 50 as its musical guest in May.
While facing conservative backlash for his criticism of President Donald Trump, Bad Bunny offered words of appreciation for the Latino community during his opening monologue, saying in Spanish that “no one can remove or erase” their contributions to the United States. The Latin rap superstar didn’t serve as the musical guest this time, with pop star Doja Cat performing two singles off of her recent album “Vie.”
But even if things above the surface were familiar, change is afoot at SNL. Longtime cast members like Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner have left the show, making space for five new faces. Here’s everything you need to know about the kickoff of this SNL season.
“Weekend Update” co-host Colin Jost unleashed a new impression to kick off this season of SNL: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Jost lampooned Hegseth’s speech to top military personnel earlier this week. He proclaimed the meeting had been called to deal with the weight problems of the armed forces and the fact that the “military is gay as hell.”
Just as quickly as “Hegseth” arrived, he was interrupted by “President Donald Trump” (played by James Austin Johnson), who was stopping in at the show to make “sure they don’t do anything too mean about me,” a nod to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel amid threats from the administration. “Trump” mostly took cracks at SNL, mocking Jost (“they were never going to let him do the cold open by himself”) while offering meta commentary deriding SNL for growing stale: “So sad to see something get old and confused and still demand your attention.”
Jeremy Culhane, a new cast member, opened the sketch in a surprising nod to the abundance of fresh faces this season, but he quickly relinquished the reins to Jost.
In his second time hosting, Bad Bunny confidently marshaled the show through familiar sketch setups. His monologue surveyed the world according to the superstar rapper-producer: he didn’t pull double duty on SNL as its musical guest because he was feeling exhausted after just finishing a 31-concert residency.
He also touched upon the recent announcement that he’s headlining the Super Bowl in February. “I think everyone is happy about it, even Fox News,” he said, before playing an edit of various Fox hosts suggesting that they love Bad Bunny and think he should be president. After sharing some thoughts in Spanish, he clarified for viewers who don’t speak it that “if you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
Elsewhere, he cycled through roles as a contestant on “Jeopardy!” who didn’t understand how the game show worked, a restaurant patron happy to be a sperm donor for a lesbian couple, the father of a schoolchild who threatened his principal and an AI bot on “ChatGPTio” — an ad for the “the first AI that feels like talking to a Latino uncle.”
Whispers of a Taylor Swift appearance didn’t pan out. But the singers behind another megahit this year made a surprise cameo. In one sketch, Bad Bunny played a character obsessed with “KPop Demon Hunters,” before Bowen Yang appears playing the demon Jinu. To wrap things up, vocalists EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, who voice the movie’s fictional band Huntr/x, appeared and sang a snippet of the No. 1 hit “Golden.”
The surprise guests didn’t stop there. Jon Hamm, who went viral for his nonchalant appearance at Bad Bunny’s residency last month, was sitting up front in the audience during the monologue. Hamm even appeared briefly in the final sketch, kissing Bad Bunny on the cheek during a parody of a children’s show. And “One Battle After Another” standout Benicio Del Toro stole the show in another skit set centuries ago when the grammatical rules of the Spanish language were being decided. Del Toro’s contribution? “I think we should take a nap in the middle of the day,” he said. And voilà, siestas!
Following her VMAs performance of “Jealous Type,” Doja Cat brought tunes from her new album, “Vie,” to the highly orchestrated SNL stage. Opening with the dizzying “AAAHH MEN!,” Doja rocked a bright yellow wig and gallivanted across a checkerboard floor. In the ’80s-flavored song, she laments the pains of dating with the line, “If I had more common sense, then I would grab my ride and dip.”
The theatrics remained for her rendition of the shuffling, bass-groove-oriented “Gorgeous,” where Doja sat perched on top of a giant red rose. Both songs showed off the “Say So” singer’s rapping skills, where her conversational, cheeky flow carried her through. But by the end of “Gorgeous,” flower petals rained down from the ceiling, a grace note for two frank songs about romance.
The formula of one of SNL’s longest running features didn’t change much: Co-hosts Michael Che and Jost got chuckles and groans as they touched on news like the government shutdown or the Israel-Gaza war, dropping jokes about the Cracker Barrel logo and clips of Trump as the punch line.
But this weekend, they broke from the norm occasionally. A bit where Jennifer Coolidge voice-acts as Trump could find mileage throughout the season. Yang joined the segment as Dobby from “Harry Potter” before his cape fell, prompting him to note that “Dobby has come undone.”
This “Weekend Update” also helped introduce new cast member Kam Patterson, whose entire role was repeatedly asking, “When are y’all going to let me say the n-word?” and offering to pay the FCC fine for it. After getting shut down by Jost, Patterson shouted, “This is exactly what Jimmy Kimmel fought for!”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
