Bad Bunny Doubles Up as Host and Musical Guest for His Third Saturday Night Live Appearance

Bad Bunny Doubles Up as Host and Musical Guest for His Third Saturday Night Live Appearance

Bad Bunny took the Saturday Night Live stage as host and musical guest and was joined by a trio of A-list stars in fun cameo appearances.

On Saturday, the award-winning musician, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, appeared on the New York-based sketch series for the third time — though first time pulling double-duty.

The show’s cold open pushed the political button that is all the talk on Capitol Hill this week — House Republicans dropping Rep. Jim Jordan as nominee for Speaker of the House. Mikey Day plays the Ohio congressman as not only miffed that he didn’t have his GOP colleagues’ support, but also confused because he did have Donald Trump’s support.

“How did I lose?” Day’s Jordan asks. “All I want is to get congress back to work so I can shut it down again!”

Bowen Yang popped in as George Santos, Chloe Fineman as Lauren Boebert and, of course, James Austin Johnson one again hitting every note as Donald Trump. “Is this the loser’s office?” Johnson’s Trump says. “People are saying that I would make a great Speaker. It’s true, but sadly I’ll be too busy campaigning, traveling from city to city visiting their beautiful courtrooms.”

Bad Bunny appeared onstage to deliver his monologue, in which he dismisses naysayers who believe he cannot host SNL because English isn’t his first language.

“I don’t know if they know, but I do whatever I want,” the Grammy winner says. “I can host this show in English. I can order McDonald’s in English. I can have sex in English, but I prefer sex in Spanish because it’s just better. I just prefer Spanish.”

Bad Bunny Doubles Up as Host and Musical Guest for His Third Saturday Night Live Appearance

With that, Bad Bunny continues his monologue in Spanish. But to help “translate” for the audience, Pedro Pascal joins him on stage. The rapper asks Pascal, 48, for advice on his monologue since the Chilean actor hosted last season. Pascal suggested he make a self-deprecating joke about his physical appearance or show the audience an embarrassing photo, but shamelessly, Bad Bunny says he had neither.

For his episode, Bad Bunny was also joined on stage by Mick Jagger, who made surprise cameos in two sketches. The 80-year-old rock legend slapped the Puerto-Rican rapper during a taping of a Spanish soap opera and infiltrated a covenant as a nun-in-disguise to come onto the ironically lustful female nuns.

Lady Gaga also paid a visit to Studio 8H to introduce Bad Bunny’s first musical performance of his newly-released song “UN PREVIEW.” Pascal later introduced the host and musical guest’s second performance of the night, “MONACO.”

Bad Bunny appeared in most of the sketches throughout the night. In addition to his skits alongside Jagger, he played a rapper who didn’t even have to spit bars to win a rap battle, the King of Spain judging what his travelers brought back from the New World and a difficult but wholesome Burt’s Bees employee.

In a pre-recorded video, Bad Bunny also dressed head-to-toe as Shrek, green skin and all. He pitched a wild yet oddly moving Shrek movie that the members of comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy love, but Bad Bunny ends up throwing the screenplay in the trash.

In a WWE-inspired promotional clip released by SNL ahead of his hosting gig, Bad Bunny came face-to-face with his other persona, Benito. Cast member James Austin Johnson took on the role of a wrestling announcer who approaches Benito in plain clothes asking if he’s ready to host.

In the middle of Benito’s response, banging could be heard off-camera as the camera panned to Bad Bunny entering the studio with a mock professional wrestling belt with SNL inscribed on it. “I got a weekend update for you, you suck,” Bad Bunny announced to Benito, spurring the latter to tell him to “shut up” before the two got into a verbal argument that ended with them facing each other menacingly.

Bad Bunny Doubles Up as Host and Musical Guest for His Third Saturday Night Live Appearance

In this week’s Weekend Update, Colin Jost pokes fun at Joe Biden, saying the president gave the “same strong message to anyone thinking of attacking Israel — “Don’t.”

After showing a montage of Biden saying “don’t” over and over again, Jost says he likes that Biden only needs one word “to get his point across,” but adds, “To give you an idea of how affective ‘don’t’ is, it’s the same thing Biden says to his dog before it bites another secret service agent.”

Continuing on that train of thought, Jost says that while Biden was in Israel, he said the Hamas attack was like “15 9/11s.”

“You can’t go somewhere to calm people down and then start rating things in numbers of 9/11s. That is not a calm scale,” Jost says. “That would like if your doctor gave you Ambien and said, ‘This will make you sleepier than 20 Cosbys.”

SNL mentioned during Weekend Update: Britney Spears’ book The Woman in Me and Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir, Worthy. “Sorry if I seem a little tired, Ego Nwodim’s Pinkett Smith says. “I’ve been on the Today Show 14 times in three days.”

Although her marriage to Will Smith is seemingly on the rocks, Nwodim’s Pinkett Smith says it’s okay, “because 23 years later, Will and I are still a unit. And it’s because we have learned that the secret to a successful marriage is: Never go to bed happy.”

Between headlining Coachella 2023 and being Spotify’s most-streamed artist three years in a row, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer is undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in the world right now.

Saturday did not mark Bad Bunny’s first foray with SNL. On April 25, 2020, the artist appeared remotely during one of Kenan Thompson’s sketches as a part of SNL at Home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His then officially appeared in-person on the show on Feb. 20, 2021, when he was tapped to be a musical guest. During that same episode, he appeared in two sketches: “ Sea Shanty” and “ Loco.”

“I always liked acting, but not more than music. Music is always number one,” Bad Bunny told about dabbling in different creative pursuits. “So when the opportunity came for acting it’s coming thanks to my fame and success in music. I’ve tried it and like it.”

Bad Bunny Doubles Up as Host and Musical Guest for His Third Saturday Night Live Appearance

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