David Spade Spills The Beans On Why Steven Seagal Was An Abysmal SNL Host
David Spade is opening up about one of the worst Saturday Night Live hosts in history.
Plenty of celebrities, politicians, and athletes, and even current Presidents have hosted SNL in the past, and any number of factors can make somebody a bad SNL host — whether they're unwilling to poke fun at themselves, refuse to be a team player, or just unenthusiastic about the whirlwind comedic presence. Luckily, since each episode is written over the course of just a few days, regular Saturday Night Live cast members don't have to spend very much time with hosts who don't really bring anything to the table. Still, even a short amount of time with a difficult or disinterested host can make for an unpleasant experience.
Other SNL alums have opened up about bad hosts before — Bill Hader famously pegged Justin Bieber as a terrible host, while the oral history Live from New York details Chevy Chase's bad host behavior, which eventually got him banned from the show — but David Spade pins a certain celebrity as one of the absolute worst of the bunch.
Here's why Spade says action star Steven Seagal was a terrible SNL host.
David Spade says Steven Seagal's attitude made for a sour time on SNL
In an interview with comedian and actor Rob Lowe on his new podcast Literally! (as reported by UPROXX), Spade got candid about Seagal's 1991 hosting gig. As Spade put it, Seagal's too-cool attitude didn't make for a particularly fun experience.
"A lot of people think we're there to make fun of them. But if we're getting you on the show to host, we all want it to work. And if you make fun of yourself — this is where it gets tricky — it will benefit you, we promise you," Spade explained. "And if you don't, and if you fight it too much — that was [Seagal]. He was too cool and he had his image [to maintain]. He couldn't be relatable. He wouldn't do kung-fu fighting as a cold open, or a monologue."
Apparently, Seagal just didn't want to spoof his own image — which is exactly what most SNL hosts do, according to Spade. "We had something [in the monologue] where he throws in kicks or something, and it would have been amazing. And I think we walked up and get kicked and fall down. He said he would do it, but he just 'talked it," said Spade. "He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't play at all, and then in the other sketches, he was fighting us."
Spade also noted that, obnoxiously, Seagal made the Saturday Night Live cast and writers "go through [his] people" every time they had a question to ask him.
Apparently, Spade isn't alone in his feelings about Seagal's hosting gig: SNL head honcho Lorne Michaels himself has ranked Seagal as one of the show's all-time worst hosts, and Seagal has been permanently banned from the sketch comedy show ever since. Clearly, the action star is down for high-octane stunts but not jokes about himself.