'SNL' Announces RuPaul, Justin Bieber for February Show

Saturday Night Live has started to round out its February schedule. The long-running variety show [...]

By Christian Long

Saturday Night Live has started to round out its February schedule. The long-running variety show announced via its Twitter account that RuPaul will host on Feb. 8, with Justin Bieber as the musical guest. This came along with the announcement that J.J. Watt will host on Feb. 1 with musical guest Luke Combs.

This will be RuPaul's first time hosting the show, though the reality star did appear briefly in a 1993 episode hosted by Charles Barkley. Justin Bieber previously appeared as a musical guest in 2010, and also did double-duty as host and guest in 2013. The year prior to that, he made a cameo in the landmark 100th SNL Digital Short.

This will be the third episode of 2020, with new episodes resuming on Jan. 25 with host Adam Driver.

The most recent episode featured Eddie Murphy's triumphant return to the SNL stage after 35 years. While his career was launched into the stratosphere not long after his time on the late-night staple, he explained to Rolling Stone in 2011 that he'd resisted going back due to some jokes fellow SNL alum David Spade told at his expense.

"They were s—ty to me on Saturday Night Live a couple of times after I'd left the show," Murphy explained at the time. "They said some s—ty things. There was that David Spade sketch. I made a stink about it, it became part of the folklore. What really irritated me about it at the time was that it was a career shot. It was like, 'Hey, come on, man, it's one thing for you guys to do a joke about some movie of mine, but my career? I'm one of you guys."

Eventually, Murphy got over it, and brought back a number of his iconic characters in the holiday-themed episode, including Gumby, Buckwheat and Mr. Robinson. For his monologue, which featured appearances from comics Dave Chappelle, Tracey Morgan and Chris Rock, Murphy also made a joke about his toned-down lifestyle, proclaiming that he was "America's dad now," a direct slight at the now-incarcerated Bill Cosby.

A spokesperson for Cosby released a statement calling it "sad that Mr. Murphy would take this glorious moment of returning to SNL and make disparaging remarks against Mr. Cosby."

The RuPaul/Bieber episode of Saturday Night Live will air Feb. 8 on NBC.

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