‘SNL’ Swipes at Morgan Wallen’s Controversies During Season Finale

Saturday Night Live took some time to reflect on the past, wild year at the top of their season finale. The episode, which Anya Taylor-Joy hosted, featured a special appearance by Chris Rock in the opening segment to speak about all of the year’s most memorable moments. At one point, the SNL cast even mentioned Morgan Wallen and his past scandals, months after the controversial country singer served as a musical guest on the program.

While Rock commented on some of the major events that took place this year, including the 2020 presidential election and Kanye West’s own run for the presidency, the SNL cast took viewers down memory lane for some of the “highlights” of the past season. The highlight reel, as introduced by Cecily Strong, mainly included Elon Musk’s interesting turn as Wario. Several other cast members reflected on the show, with Alex Moffat offering, “Hey, remember when Morgan Wallen got booked on the show?” Mikey Day added that he then got unbooked, rebooked, and then “canceled.”

Just as they said, Wallen was previously booked as the musical guest for an episode that was due to air in October. However, when the singer was seen getting close with fans (which was in violation of SNL‘s safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic), they removed him from the program. Jack White took his place. But, the NBC sketch series gave Wallen another chance, as they had him appear as the musical guest during a December episode.

Earlier this year, Wallen found himself in the midst of another controversy. At the time, TMZ published a video of him outside of his Nashville home with his friends. The group was reportedly heading back from a night out when Wallen urged one of his friends to take care of another individual who was with them. The country singer told one of his friends to “take care of” this “p— ass mother—” and then added, “take care of this p— ass n—.” Wallen subsequently issued an apology for using the slur, which read, “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.”