The latest edition of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update commemorated the late comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who died Tuesday aged 67 after a long illness.
Weekend Update hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost didn’t address Gottfried’s death themselves, but the segment ended with a photo tribute to Gottfried before a commercial break.
Gottfried, known for his distinctive high-pitched voice as seen in Aladdin, died of recurrent ventricular tachycardia — an abnormal heart rhythm — due to Type II myotonic dystrophy, NBC News revealed.
While Gottfried began his comedy career at the age of 15, he came to national attention when he competed on the 1980 season of Saturday Night Live. He appeared in a total of 12 episodes of the sketch comedy series. He later reunited with SNL colleague Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II.
Before paying tribute to Gottfried, Weekend Update covered a range of news items, including the attack on the New York subway and Elon Musk’s offer to take over Twitter. Jost and Che seemed as confused as Twitter users themselves, wondering what exactly the Tesla CEO would expect from the social media platform.
“It’s confusing and depressing, it’s the Giuliani of apps,” said Jost. “It’s like the Prince of England gave up everything to marry an actress from Suits,” a reference to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Melissa Villaseñor rounded out the segment’s comedy, which portrayed Jost’s driver trying out his stand-up footage.
Lizzo was in action twice on Saturday and acted both as a presenter and as a musical guest. While she was first directing the sketch series, the singer made her SNL debut in December 2019.