Adrien Brody isn’t quite sure what to think about speculation that his notorious “Saturday Night Live” performance got him permanently banned from the sketch show.
Brody hosted “SNL” only once, on May 10, 2003, but during his final task of introducing Jamaican musical guest Sean Paul, the actor appeared in fake dreadlocks — and spent a whopping 41 seconds announcing Paul in a Jamaican accent.
“They were all literally agape from me pitching,” Brody told Vulture in a recent profile.
The moment recently resurfaced on social media to shocked reactions, with some noting that Brody said, “kill a batty boy” — a slur in Jamaican Patois for gay or effeminate men — in his intro, which prompted rumors online that he was banned from “SNL” as a result.
Brody hasn’t been back in 22 years, after all. But he told Vulture that “SNL” producers gave him the wig and watched him do the bit without objection during a prior dress rehearsal.
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Brody wagered that “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels was likely upset regardless.
“I think Lorne wasn’t happy with me embellishing a bit, but they allowed me to,” he told Vulture. “I thought that was a safe space to do that, weirdly.”
Brody delivered a nearly indecipherable intro for Paul that night. Dressed in a tank top, dreadlocks and a sweat armband, he fully committed to the bit, starting by sputtering a series of “ya mons” on air in a pseudo-Jamaican accent.
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The actor had won an Oscar for his acclaimed performance in “The Pianist” (2002) mere months earlier, and while he told Vulture that he wasn’t banned from “SNL,” he then admitted he wasn’t actually sure.
“I also have never been invited back on,” he told Vulture. “So I don’t know what to tell you.”