Saturday Night Live’s Most Controversial Guests Ahead of SNL 50

Live from New York … it’s 50 years of celebrity outbursts and musical meltdowns on Saturday Night Live.

The hugely influential NBC sketch comedy show is celebrating its 50th anniversary on Sunday, February 16, with a live three-hour NBC special featuring cast reunions and highlights of SNL’s greatest moments. Just keep in mind that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing at Studio 8H! Live TV is the riskiest medium of all, and there have been numerous examples of Saturday Night Live going off the rails over the past five decades.

While longstanding rumors of certain guests being banned have been denied by producer Lorne Michaels, there have been memorable instances of hosts and musical guests rebelling and even SNL‘s own cast members getting into scraps behind the scenes. Michaels famously said that SNL “doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.”

Ahead of SNL 50, keep scrolling to look back on the show’s most controversial hosts and musical guests of all time:

Kanye West

West has had a contentious relationship with Saturday Night Live for more than a decade, despite appearing on the show as a musical guest seven times between 2005 and 2018.

The controversial hip-hop star once got so angry about SNL poking fun at him that he called out the show on his 2010 track “Power,” saying: “F— SNL and the whole cast, tell ’em Yeezy said they can kiss my whole ass.” Strangely, Michaels didn’t take the insult personally and invited West back many times.

In 2016, West threatened to walk out before SNL went live because his preferred stage decorations had been changed without permission. The 2025 documentary Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music included behind-the-scenes audio of West complaining to his handlers after storming out.

“Look at that s—,” the musician is heard saying. “They took my f—ing stage off at SNL without asking me. Now I’m bummed. Are they f—ing crazy? I’m 50 percent more influential than any other human being. Don’t f— with me!”

Michaels recalled having to follow West out of Rockefeller Center in order to persuade the rapper to return.

“We talked and we just went over what had happened,” Michaels said in the documentary. “I said, ‘Didn’t you tell everybody that you’re on, and that they’ll be hearing this stuff? So we’ll be here regardless and we’ll figure it out, but this is more damaging to you than it is to us, so I think you should do it.’”

The final straw seemingly came during season 44 in 2018 when West defiantly showed support for Donald Trump by wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap on air and then ranted to the studio audience about his support for the politician after the show finished broadcasting. West has not been invited back since that controversial episode.

Chevy Chase

Chase was the first of SNL‘s Not Ready for Prime Time Players to become a superstar in 1975 and, thus, also the first cast member to quit the show. Chase exited Saturday Night Live in the middle of the second season, and when he returned to host from time to time, it usually went badly.

His first hosting stint came on February 18, 1978, when he had a now-notorious scuffle with Bill Murray backstage just before going on air. Chase later claimed on The Howard Stern Show that Murray, who had replaced Chase in SNL’s cast, had been manipulated by a “jealous” John Belushi into confronting him so close to air time.

“[Bill] was a tough kid from Chicago who probably thought I was from Harvard and had never had a fight. Unfortunately, that’s not true,” Chase said in 2008.

He went on: “Apparently, [my success] ate a little bit at John, enough so that he said things to Bill about me [about] when I was on the show that simply hadn’t occurred or existed. … He’d already worked Bill up a little bit. I went in [to host], I was probably a little full of myself after a year of fame, or whatever, and I think that Bill probably wanted to knock me down a couple of rungs and I think he wanted to take me on.”

Chase and Murray made peace after their brawl and even starred together in classic 1980 comedy Caddyshack.

In 1985, producer Michaels returned to SNL after five years away and asked Chase to come in as host for season 11’s second show on November 16, 1985. The previous week’s season premiere, hosted by Madonna, had been widely panned, so the SNL team were counting on Chase to help turn around their fortunes.

Unfortunately, Chase’s return to SNL was nothing like the triumphant comeback Michaels may have envisioned, as he clashed with the writers and cast right away. In the 2002 book Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, season 11 cast member Terry Sweeney referred to Chase as “a monster.”

“I mean, he insulted everybody. He said to Robert Downey Jr., ‘Didn’t your father used to be a successful director? Whatever happened to him? Boy, he sure died, you know, he sure went to hell.’ Downey turned ashen,” Sweeney recalled. “And then Chevy turned to me and he said, ‘Oh, you’re the gay guy, right?’ And he goes, ‘I’ve got an idea for a sketch for you. How about we say you have AIDS and we weigh you every week?’ It was out of place.”

Chase continued to be a problematic figure throughout much of his career, having famously left NBC sitcom Community in 2012 after allegedly using a racial slur on set. Chase denied any wrongdoing.

Adrien Brody

Brody was less than two months removed from becoming the youngest-ever Best Actor Oscar winner for The Pianist when he hosted SNL on May 10, 2003.

The sketches in Brody’s episode weren’t notable, but he infamously stirred up trouble behind the scenes by insisting on wearing a dreadlock wig to introduce musical guest Sean Paul.

The actor had been told by SNL‘s production team not to wear the wig but decided to do so anyway, on top of using an offensive imitation of a Jamaican patois in his intro.

For many years, it was assumed that Brody had been banned for life from hosting SNL. Brody denied that he’d been outright banned in a January 2025 interview with Vulture but did concede that he’d “never been invited back on” either.

Michaels set the record straight in Peacock’s 2025 documentary Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music when he denied anyone was officially banned from the show.

“I’ll read it sometimes in the Post, ‘So and so’s banned for life.’ We’ve never banned anyone,” Michaels said. “We’re way too crass and opportunistic. If something’s hot, we’re going to go for it and have it on.”

Sinéad O’Connor

Perhaps the most controversial musical performance in SNL‘s history aired on October 3, 1992, when Irish singer-songwriter O’Connor ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II during her cover of Bob Marley‘s 1976 protest song “War.”

“Fight the real enemy,” she urged viewers as she threw the shredded photograph on the studio floor.

O’Connor had been a vocal critic of the Catholic Church throughout her career, having accused the organization of turning a blind eye to alleged sexual and emotional abuse she and others suffered as a child in Ireland. The Catholic Church had not yet publicly acknowledged or apologized for abuses within its ranks and wouldn’t do so for another eight years.

SNL‘s then-music coordinator John Zonars revealed in Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live that O’Connor’s manager approached him before showtime to ask whether SNL ever pulled the show off air if “something [went] wrong.”

O’Connor wasn’t originally supposed to perform “War,” but her manager requested a last-minute change. Producers were then assured O’Connor was going to hold up a picture of a child and say: “This is what we have to protect.”

When the SNL production team discovered live on air that O’Connor switched out her picture for one of the pope, Michaels demanded that the applause sign in Studio 8H not be flashed. However, the producer later made the decision to keep the performance intact for SNL‘s Central and West Coast repeats.

“Lorne was the only one that didn’t seem completely out of his mind,” Zonars said. “One thing I’ve always respected about Lorne is that he has this real hard-on for any kind of censorship. He does not want anything to be censored. He wants things to happen as they happen.”

O’Connor was swiftly condemned by both the Catholic Church and the Anti-Defamation League and was booed during a performance at Bob Dylan‘s 30th anniversary concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden two weeks later.

Despite the backlash she faced, O’Connor told Salon in 2002 that she stood by her statement, even if the nuances may not have been as clear to American viewers as they were in Ireland.

“It’s very understandable that the American people did not know what I was going on about,” O’Connor said. “But outside of America, people did really know and it was quite supported and I think very well understood.”

Dave Chappelle

Eagle-eyed Saturday Night Live viewers quickly spotted an awkward moment during the closing Goodnights segment on the January 27, 2024, episode.

Chappelle popped up unannounced to mingle with SNL‘s cast during the closing credits even though he hadn’t appeared in any sketches in the Dakota Johnson–hosted installment.

Cast member Bowen Yang stood on the opposite side of the stage with his arms folded throughout the Goodnights, looking upset. Fans speculated that Yang was silently protesting Chappelle’s appearance due to his controversial jokes about the transgender community.

Yang subsequently acknowledged to Variety that he was “just confused” by Chappelle’s appearance because of “other people’s response in the show.”

“I stand where I always stand on Goodnights. It was not a physical distance that anyone was creating,” he said in June 2024. “It had to do with so many things that were completely internal.”

Any disagreement was seemingly smoothed over by the time Chappelle hosted SNL again in January 2025, as he was shown hugging Yang during the closing credits.

Louise Lasser

An early example of SNL breaking its usually rigid format took place on the July 24, 1976, episode.

Lasser, the star of satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, had been arrested on a charge of cocaine possession (for which she’d later be sentenced to drug counseling) a week before she was due to host the NBC show. SNL writers parodied Lasser’s soap role and real-life scandals by referencing the actress’s genuine personal problems in multiple sketches designed to make viewers question the reality of what they were watching.

According to SNL staffers, Lasser reached a breaking point during rehearsals and locked herself in her dressing room.

“The day of the show, she decided she wasn’t going to do the show unless a certain sketch was cut,” SNL talent coordinator Neil Levy said in Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. “And we were all preparing to do the show without her. In fact, I remember [Dan] Aykroyd getting excited about it: ‘We can do it, Lorne. We can get out there and we’ll improv it. We’ll do a helluva show.’ And they were ready. And Lorne told her agent that he would make sure everyone knew if she walked out.”

Lasser ultimately went on as scheduled, but the SNL writers played off the host’s real discomfort during her monologue. She was shown fleeing the stage, in a moment that was presented to viewers as real, before being coaxed out of her dressing room to continue the show.

Michaels had Lasser’s episode pulled from SNL‘s syndication package due to the controversy.

Andrew Dice Clay

SNL‘s decision to invite incendiary comedian Clay to host on May 12, 1990, didn’t simply attract bad press — it caused tremendous dissension behind the scenes.

Clay attracted criticism for his stand-up comedy routine, some of which was deemed sexist, racist and homophobic by advocacy groups Rock Against Racism, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Organization for Women. Members from each of these groups protested outside Rockefeller Center in hopes of getting Clay dropped from SNL.

After Michaels announced Clay would go on as scheduled, SNL cast member Nora Dunn boycotted the episode alongside scheduled musical guest Sinéad O’Connor.

In a 2015 interview with Salon, Dunn said she chose to walk out because she wasn’t confident SNL‘s writing staff could “handle” Clay’s raunchy humor without appearing to condone it.

“Lorne said, ‘Andrew Dice Clay was a phenomenon worth examining.’ And yeah, he was a phenomenon, but if you’re going to examine him, he shouldn’t be the host, you should write an article,” she argued. “We didn’t examine the hosts of SNL. We supported them, we wrote for them and we made them look good. Otherwise you’d never get a host. You’re there to make them look good. SNL was not capable of handling that kind of stuff and it was a sad moment, but whatever.”

Dunn went on: “I was well aware of that guy’s so-called ‘work.’ He had been a comedian for many years, and he gradually became Andrew Dice Clay and he got more and more into it and he lost his way because he wasn’t smart enough.”

By the time Clay stepped on stage for his monologue on Saturday, tensions were running high in Studio 8H. Dice was mere moments into his stand-up routine when activists in the audience began loudly protesting.

“Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Clay go away,” the protesters chanted before being removed from the studio.

Michaels stood by his decision to book Clay while being interviewed in 2002 for Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live.

“My sympathies were with [Clay],” the producer said. “One of the things you’ll find is consistent from the beginning to now is that we’ve always obeyed the rules of hospitality. You don’t invite somebody to your house to piss on him. My point is that this person has put themselves in your hands, they’re completely vulnerable, the show only works if they look good, so why would you have anybody over that you don’t like? What — because you need the ratings? It doesn’t make any sense. He was completely vulnerable. Nora painted herself into a corner, I think. We’re not one big happy family, you’ve probably figured that out. That said, everybody plays by a set of rules.”

Dunn returned to Saturday Night Live for the following week’s season 15 finale but exited the cast soon after.

Elon Musk

The Tesla executive and new boss of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency dabbled in sketch comedy when he hosted the May 8, 2021, episode. Critics saw Musk’s booking as an example of stunt casting, like SNL had done many times before with Trump, Paris Hilton and any number of professional athletes.

As expected, Musk’s sketch performances as Wario and a hipster doctor were roundly panned, and many long-time SNL fans would have preferred the episode become lost to time.

Musk’s alleged bad behavior behind the scenes came to light after cast member Bowen Yang seemingly called him out on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in 2024. Yang accused an unnamed male host of making “multiple cast members cry” before his costar Chloe Fineman directly outed Musk by revealing she’d been reduced to tears by him.

“I just saw some news article about Elon Musk being like butt-hurt about SNL and his impression [by Dana Carvey], but I’m like, ‘You’re clearly watching the show.’ Like, what are you talking about?” Fineman said in a now-deleted TikTok video. “And I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry.’ And he’s the host that made someone cry. Maybe there’s others.”

Musk defended himself via X by writing that he’d expressed frustrations at SNL about whether his episode would be “so f—ing unfunny that it [would] make a crackhead sober.”

The Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special airs Sunday, February 16, with a red carpet special streaming live on Peacock from 7 p.m ET and the live show airing on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.