Overview
- Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che revived their joke swap on Saturday’s Season 51 finale, reading shocking lines the other wrote for them live on air.
- Jost had to say a Ye line that suggested being “right about Hitler,” while Che delivered a Michael Jackson rant claiming the singer “did nothing wrong,” drawing audible gasps.
- After the Ye line, Jost read a scripted pledge to shave his “award-winning” hair as atonement, and a barber draped him with a cape before Che stepped in and stopped the cut.
- Jost also read a written apology that pledged his season’s salary to Dr. Umar’s School for Black Boys and offered a one-way trip on his Staten Island ferry as part of the gag.
- The joke swap began in 2015 and became a regular fixture by 2018, with Che often making Jost sound racist and Jost making Che sound predatory, and this edition quickly spread online and fueled fresh debate about the limits of live comedy.