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Scarlett Johansson has admitted that the “vulgar” and “gross” jokes made about her on Saturday Night Live’s 2024 Christmas episode left her feeling “faint.”
During the show’s December holiday edition, Johansson’s husband, SNL star Colin Jost, and his co-anchor Michael Che, hosted their annual “joke exchange” as part of their popular “Weekend Update” segment.
The tradition involves both men finding new ways to embarrass the other as they read jokes their comedy partner has written, which they had never seen before.
In the sketch, Jost was made to read several jokes that took aim at Johannson’s age, their baby and their sex life.
The most brutal joke, however, came at the end of the segment. “Costco has removed the roast beef sandwich from its menu, but I ain’t tripping,” Jost began. “I be eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid.”
The cameras quickly switched to show Johannson, 40, watching from a screen backstage in complete shock. “Oh my god!” she said through laughs. “Holy s***.”
Finishing the gag, Jost said: “Naw, I’m just playing, baby. You know I don’t go downtown.”
Reflecting on the jaw-dropping moment in a new interview with InStyle, Johannson said: “It was so vulgar. I just can’t believe that they went there. I was like — it was so gross. It was really gross. And, like, old-school gross.”
While the Black Widow star said she had been warned that a “vagina joke” was going to be made, she didn’t realize it was going to be at her expense.
“I was like, ‘I mean, it’s a vagina joke, how bad could it be?’ And then as soon as the Costco photo came up, I was like, No! No, Michael!’” she remembered.
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“They were waiting for me to react. I felt insane,” Johannson added of the backstage cameras. “I was like, ‘I think I’m going to faint.’”
“The fact that it took on a full To Catch a Predator-style reveal or whatever,” she continued, “that was so intense. All of a sudden, it was like a whole bunch of people holding up lights, and a guy with a video camera.”
Elsewhere in the “Weekend Update” segment, Jost cracked a joke about their three-year-old son, Cosmo, whom they welcomed together in 2021.
Johansson, who has been married to Jost since 2020, is also a mother to daughter Rose, 10, with whom she shares with her ex-husband Romain Dauriac.
