Saturday Night Live wanted to make people laugh. Instead, some viewers reached for their phones to complain.
The Season 52 premiere featured New York KKnicks player Jalen Brunson as host. KATSEYE served as the musical guest. The episode had plenty of basketball jokes, celebrity appearances, and the usual SNL madness.
But one sketch quickly became a talking point for a different reason.
Brunson appeared in a support-group sketch involving women attending a Chris Brown and Usher concert. The joke centered on men whose partners had been pulled onto the stage during the performers’ tour.
Sounds simple enough, except some viewers were not laughing.
During one of the skits, the professional basketball player played a character who had joined an emotional support group after their partners attended an Usher and Chris Brown concert.
Both music artists are currently embarking on their R&B Tour which kicked off back in June.
Cast member Kenan Thompson played one of the individuals during the meeting as he explained with difficulty, ‘My girl was brought on stage at the Chris Brown and Usher tour.’
The others in the support group greeted him with understanding.
Thompson’s character said his wife had ‘surprised’ him with front row tickets to one of the shows.
‘The show was fun enough. The dancing and ripping open their shirts and whatnot,’ he said.
‘Then six songs in, Usher jumps off the stage, dangling a d**n cherry. Looking at dropping it into some lady’s mouth. Then suddenly, Diane is just hungry as hell,’ Thompson continued in frustration.
When told to stay calm, he added, ‘I’m just saying, cherries are out of season! Where did you get that, Usher?’
It was then Brunson’s turn to speak and he explained that his ‘girl was brought onstage at the Chris Brown-Usher tour.’
He shared that he didn’t attend the concert, but had purchased tickets for his partner and her friends.
‘Next morning, I open TikTok. I see my girl strapped to a pole. Spinning like shawarma.
‘There’s Mr. Breezy, no shirt on, drenched in sweat,’ he added, referring to Brown’s nickname.
‘My girl’s eyes rolling in the back of her head like she’s looking for memories. Video has 123,000 likes. Top comment says, “Pray for her man, y’all.”‘
Brunson then added, ‘When I spent $1,200 on that meet and greet, I never expected her to actually greet his meat.’
Others at the meeting voiced similar incidents, with one saying, ‘This kind of stuff don’t happen at the Noah Kahan concert.’
The bigger issue was the way Chris Brown was used in the joke.
The skit came to an end after everyone in the support group had their chance to speak, and Usher’s hit 2004 track Yeah! began playing in the background.
Following the sketch, some social media users jumped over to X to slam the sketch.
One penned, ‘the chris brown skit was not funny…,’ while another said, ‘Why are they talking about chris brown.’
‘Snl lowkey high key glorifying Chris brown in this new sketch is so icky,’ an X user typed, and one added, ‘g** a** skit glazing chris brown smh this is why the uk version is better.’
Another commented, ‘snl has several new women on their cast and they’re doing an all-male skit centered around chris brown. this is why they’re never beating the not funny allegations.’
However, others had a differing opinion as one penned, ‘Aye…I’m actually cackling at this Chris Brown/Usher Anonymous skit.’
So, did SNL score a comedy slam dunk? Majority of viewers clearly thought it missed.
