A lot of people don’t know that Saturday Night Live actually banned famous celebrities from appearing on the show ever again. The show has tackled controversial topics in their skits but some of their guests have gone too far. There are others who were kicked out for life because they messed up their appearances so badly. This just shows Lorne Michaels isn’t afraid to give even the biggest stars the boot. Here are fifteen celebrities who have been banned from Saturday Night Live.
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Adrien Brody
Improvisation is pretty common for performers, but it’s a risky thing to do since it’s not in the plan. Some walk away with happy crowd, but Brody had the short end of the stick. The actor botched his introduction to musical guest Sean Paul. Apparently, wearing fake dreadlocks and rambling in fake patois got him banned since it wasn’t executed to Michael’s liking.
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Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase is the first – and only – former cast member to be banned from hosting SNL, which came in February 1997. Rumor has it that Chase was very verbally abusive and was regularly pitching sketch ideas that were somehow offensive to current cast members. Will Ferrell and Tim Meadows even came out to say that Chase was never nasty to them personally, but that they knew that the stories about him were 100 percent true. However, while Chase has been banned from hosting SNL, he hasn’t been banned from appearing on the show.
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Andy Kaufman
Eccentric entertainer Andy Kaufman’s SNL banishment is rather unusual. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Kaufman was a guest staple on SNL for his weird, yet funny, performances. But this all changed in 1983 when former SNL executive producer Dick Ebersol, for whatever the reason, decided to leave it up to the audience to see if Kaufman would ever return to the show. Two phone numbers were presented and viewers were asked to call one to vote “yes” and the other to vote “no.” When the results came in, the “no” votes had won, much to the SNL cast’s dismay.
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Louise Lasser
Rumor had it that she was going through some difficulties in her life at the time – and it certainly showed on the show, as she bumbled through the entire thing as a host and appeared disoriented and incoherent. She refused to appear in any sketches unless she was either alone in them or Chevy Chase was in them with her. Needless to say, she was banned from hosting after the episode aired and scores the honor of being the very first host of SNL to ever be banned from the show.
Rage Against the Machine
In a Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Steve Forbes, who in 1996 was hoping to become President, rap/punk/hard metal group Rage Against the Machine managed to get one song in before being kicked off the stage and the show forever. There was no smashing of guitars and destruction of NBC property this time; the politically-driven liberals hung American flags upside-down on their amps before performing their hit “Bulls on Parade.” The inverted flag, a symbol of distress or emergency, was meant as a protest against having Republican Forbes as a presidential candidate.
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Martin Lawrence
The comedian can never appear on SNL again after going into a lengthy and extremely explicit tirade during his monologue. He also launched into an impassioned commentary about the decline of female hygiene. It’s so explicit to the point that the entire segment has been wiped from syndication. We’re not too worried about Lawrence however. He’s in talks to make another Bad Boys movie with Will Smith. He’s not sweating SNL at all right now.
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Sinead O’Connor
You know you’re asking for trouble when you rip a photo of the Pope to shreds in front of millions of television audiences. O’Connor also sealed the deal by saying “Fight the real enemy” immediately after. Needless to say, O’Connor was never invited back, but to her credit, she’s expressed no regret about her actions from the episode. TV Guide, however, ranks it was one of the “Top 25 Biggest TV Blunders of All Time.”
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Cypress Hill
The duo didn’t botch their chances of ever appearing on the show again by saying something explicit or performing badly. Some would argue that they did banished themselves intentionally. Cypress Hill lit a joint onstage and proceeded to trash the instruments and the stage in general.
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Steven Seagal
The action star was banned from the show mostly because he was considered to be a terrible performer. There were reports that he was difficult to work with, but Lorne Michaels remembers him as the “worst host ever.” We won’t be seeing a repeat performance from Seagal on SNL ever.
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Elvis Costello
Costello was specifically instructed by the show and his label NOT to play his controversial song “Radio, Radio.” He obliged for a while and performed his hit song “Less Than Zero” for about three seconds before switching his tune to perform the former song. This resulted in a 12-year-long ban from the show.
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Charles Grodin
Grodin performed badly during his first performance on SNL. He reportedly skipped rehearsals and improvised most of his lines. It didn’t help much though since his performance continued to go downhill. His first appearance was in 1977 and now we know why he never hosted again.
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The Replacements
It’s pretty obvious why they this band can never set foot in SNL ever again. They missed entire verses, forgot, and mumbled lyrics throughout their musical performance. It didn’t help that they switched clothes between songs and started to scream obscenities at the audience.
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Milton Berle
In 1979, the early TV star was banned from the show because of his overacting and he reportedly upstaged cast members. He also sang a dreary rendition of “September Song” and it wasn’t received well. Lorne Michaels actually banned the episode from being rebroadcasted until 2003.
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Robert Blake
Blake was noted to be difficult to work with according to the cast and crew. He reportedly wadded up the script pages cast member Gary Kroeger gave to him and threw it on the latter’s face. This is exactly the type of behavior that’ll definitely guarantee a show from never calling you back to perform ever again.
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Norm MacDonald Commercials
Former SNL cast member Norm Macdonald wasn’t banned from Saturday Night Live. However, the almost legendary 1998 off-screen feud between Macdonald and NBC’s West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer led the commercials for Macdonald’s (at the time) new movie “Dirty Work” to be banned during SNL air time. Ohlmeyer originally wanted the ads banned from NBC altogether, but network president Robert Wright didn’t see the need to go to such extremes.
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