Saturday Night Live returned after the holiday break, and host Keke Palmer made a big announcement: She’s having a baby!
“People have been saying in my comments, ‘Keke is having a baby,’ ‘Keke is pregnant,’ and I want to set the record straight,” Palmer said in her opening monologue. “I am!”
Palmer broke the big news by revealing her baby bump during her animated and hysterical monologue, in which she opened up about her big year starring in “Nope” and being nominated for an Oscar — which, she joked, didn’t actually happen .
“I’ve been trying so hard to keep it rock bottom because I’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” she said. “You know, people kept coming up to me, ‘Congratulations,’ and I was like, ‘Shh, can you all stop? I have a spirits sponsorship at stake.”
Jokes aside, Palmer couldn’t contain her excitement.
“But honestly, that’s the biggest blessing, and I’m so excited,” she said. “Guys, I’m going to be a mother.”
She wrapped herself in a reflective note.
“When I first got into comedy and dreamed of being on that stage, I was like, ‘Keke, who are you going to be?'” she said. “Will you be like Maya Rudolph? Eddie Murphy? A Kristen Wiig guy?’ And now I can tell you exactly who I am: Baby, I’m Keke Palmer.”
Also in the monologue, Palmer recalled her time as the lead in 2006’s Akeelah and the Bee.
“It was such a great experience. I was having so much fun, except when Laurence Fishburne yelled at me,” she said.
Palmer was very playful in an opening sketch in which he spoofed the soap opera network and was flung into wrestling positions and thrown into furniture by Cecily Strong. It was revealed at the end of the sketch that stunt doubles were used. She also poked fun at Drake in a sketch that focused on women – “United Tingz of Aubrey” – who had previously dated the singer. She later faked her pregnancy in an ultrasound sketch with her babies tipping a door-dash driver out of the womb. She also appeared in a skit exploring the origins of “Hello, Kitty” (featuring a surprise cameo from “Russian Doll” star Natasha Lyonne) and showcased her musical prowess in a video with SZA in which she shared the Virtues from “Big Boys” praised and rocked “O holy night” in a choral sketch.
Palmer, 29, is expecting Insecure star Sarunas Jackson’s brother with boyfriend Darius Daulton.
The show opened with a sketch targeting Herschel Walker and the runoff.
“My ex-wife says all I do is run away,” quipped Kenan Thompson as Walker.
When asked about any scandals in his past, the clock ticks for an hour with even more Walker gaffes.
“I feel very confident in this erection,” he said.
The Saturday Night Live stars are Kenan Thompson, Cecily Strong, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, Chloe Fineman, Punkie Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, and Weekend Update hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost. The cast also includes James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman, Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker as leads. Kent Sublette, Alison Gates and Streeter Seidell serve as the show’s head writers, while Liz Patrick is directing.