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Bowen Yang Calling Out SNL for Dave Chappelle, Nikki Haley Moves?

Bowen Yang might be jabbing SNL for its recent Dave Chappelle & Nikki Haley moves - and Shane Gillis hasn't even returned to host yet.

Okay, so it's not just us. For a while there, we felt like we were the only ones who sensed that there was a weird vibe around NBC's Saturday Night Live since it returned for the back half of Season 49 a few weeks back. We had Dave Chappelle showing up at the end of the Dakota Johnson/Justin Timberlake show – even though he wasn't on the show earlier. We had GOP 2024 POTUS candidate Nikki Haley showing up in the cold open to this weekend's Ayo Edebiri-hosted (with musical guest Jennifer Lopez) show. During that same episode, we learned that Shane Gillis would be hosting when SNL returned on February 24th (alongside 21 Savage). For those who forgot, Gillis was originally tapped to join SNL back in 2019 – alongside Bowen Yang & Chloe Fineman. But the long-running sketch comedy & music series would soon part ways with the newly-announced cast member only days after recordings of racist, sexist, and homophobic comments surfaced – part of a YouTube channel called Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast.

Maybe it's just a series of "wacky coincidences," or maybe it's SNL EP Lorne Michaels's efforts to appeal to "all sides of an issue." It's hard to say – but Haley, Chappelle & Gillis don't have great track records when it comes to the LGBTQ community and other diverse groups. Based on what folks have been sharing on social media, it looks like a lot of folks are wondering what the deal is – and it appears that Yang has been finding ways to make their feelings known. Just to be clear, a lot of this does leave room for interpretation – but with Chappelle, it appeared that Yang was purposefully distancing themselves from the actor/comedian. Meanwhile, Haley's appearance was followed up with an Instagram post from Yang – one that didn't have that long of a life before it was taken down. In the screencap below, you can see an image of a flower arrangement along with a note from Michaels welcoming Haley to Studio 8H: "Welcome to Studio 8H! From Lorne + everyone at SNL." Yang's caption for the post? "Everyone" (with an old-school smiley face). It remains to be seen if Yang will have a response to Gillis' being invited back to the long-running sketch comedy/music series.

Chappelle Joins SNL Cast at End of Dakota Johnson/Justin Timberlake Episode: At the end of a solid effort that definitely cleaned up some of the mess from the previous week, NBC cut back to SNL for everyone to take the stage for final remarks and to take a metaphorical bow. Joining the SNL cast, Johnson, and Timberlake were a number of familiar faces who appeared in sketches that night – Jimmy Fallon and ABC's Shark Tank stars Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran. But they were also joined by Chappelle, who hadn't appeared that night but did take the stage to join the group for the final moments.

Before Chappelle's most recent SNL hosting gig (November 12, 2022: Season 48 Episode 6, with musical guest Black Star), the actor/comedian was already facing backlash from the LGBTQ community over comments he made in his Netflix stand-up special and in interviews on the matter. At the time, reports were that some of the show's writers & cast had threatened not to be involved with his show in protest. It didn't take long for folks on social media (and some mainstream media sites) to ficus on the reaction from Yang & Sarah Sherman to Chappelle's appearance.

Here's a look at the video of the very end of this weekend's SNL – make sure to keep an eye on Yang and Sherman's interactions to the far left, as well as Chappelle's interactions to the far right:

Nikki Haley Gets Free Airtime in "CNN Town Hall South Carolina" Cold Open: During the "CNN Town Hall South Carolina" Cold Open from this past weekend, CNN's King Charles hosts Gayle King (Punkie Johnson) & Charles Barkley (Kenan Thompson) hosted a town hall for Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson). That's when Haley made a guest appearance as a "concerned South Carolina voter" to get into some awkward back-and-forths with "Trump" that left us feeling like her campaign had used & abused SNL to get what it wanted – free air time to make their candidate look a little less like "Trump Lite."

Shane Gillis: Fired in 2019 – Hosting in 2024? In one of the segments from a more extensive September 2018 YouTube post (which was removed), Gillis says to co-host & comedian Matt McCusker, "Chinatown's f***ing nuts. Let the f***ing ch**ks live there." Later in that same video post, Gillis has this to say about his experiences at Chinese restaurants: "The translation between you and the waiter is such a f—ing hassle, I'm pointing at it." Gillis then appears to attempt to differentiate their discussion by calling it "nice racism, good racism." Gillis would respond to the controversy by offering to apologize to anyone "who's actually offended by anything" and stating that to be "the best comedian" he can be, he must be someone who "pushes boundaries" and "takes risks." Now, a little more than four years later, Gillis will be back on the SNL stage as host – with many wondering what has changed between Gillis and Michaels/SNL since that time.

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