Lizzo Pulls Double Duty in Her Promos For ‘SNL’ Appearance This Week

This week’s Saturday Night Live promos highlight the many talents of Lizzo. Lizzo will be the host and musical guest of SNL on Saturday, April 16, and she seems excited to pull double duty. She cracked a few jokes with cast member Kenan Thompson for commercials ahead of the big broadcast.

Lizzo is the latest star to be both the celebrity host and musical guest of SNL on the same night. That means she is carrying twice the responsibility right from the start with her promos for the episode, where it is just her and Thompson in the studio teasing the episode. In the first promo, she admitted that she won’t be performing all on her own, saying that Thompson will be her backup dancer. In another, Thompson joked about her many talents including singing, dancing, rapping and playing the flute.

The third promo was probably the funniest. It started with Lizzo introducing herself and revealing that she will be pulling double duty this week, to Thompson’s apparent amazement. He said: “How you going to host and be musical guest? Did they clone you?”

“No, of course not! There’s no clone Lizzo!” Lizzo responded, patting Thompson on the shoulder with a chuckle. Thompson laughed and agreed, but then the camera zoomed in on his face as he narrated his suspicious thoughts in voice-over.

“That’s exactly what clone Lizzo would want me to think,” he mused. He and Lizzo then shared another nervous laugh to close the commercial out.

Lizzo is joining a relatively exclusive group of stars who have served as both the host and musical guest of SNL on the same night. According to a report by Entertainment Weekly, there are just 42 performers who have pulled this off. That list starts with Paul Simon in 1975 and extends all the way to Billy Eilish in December of 2021. The most recent performers to hit this milestone include Ariana Grande, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino,) Halsey, Chance the Rapper, Harry Styles and Nick Jonas.

Lizzo has been the musical guest on SNL once before without hosting. She was on the episode which aired on Dec. 21, 2019 with host Eddie Murphy. It was a particularly significant episode since it was the final one of the decade. Since then, Lizzo has expanded her range even more with projects in the works at Amazon Studios and a new album on the way.

Lizzo’s second episode on Saturday Night Live begins at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC. It will be available to stream afterward on Peacock and Hulu, with breakout clips on YouTube and social media as well.