‘SNL’s Weekend Update Pays Tribute To Late Alum Gilbert Gottfried, Rips Into Elon Musk’s Twitter Bid

The latest installment of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update remembered late comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who died on Tuesday after a lengthy illness. He was 67.

Weekend Update hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost themselves didn’t touch on Gottfried’s passing, but the segment concluded with a photo tribute to Gottfried before cutting to a commercial break.

Gottfried, known for his trademark shrill voice as featured in Aladdin, died of recurrent ventricular tachycardia — an abnormal heart rhythm — due to myotonic dystrophy type II, as revealed by NBC News.

While Gottfried started his comedy career at 15 years old, he became known to a national audience when he joined the 1980 season of Saturday Night Live. He appeared in a total of 12 episodes for the sketch comedy series. He later reunited with SNL colleague Eddie Murphy on Beverly Hills Cop II. 

Before paying tribute to the late Gottfried, Weekend Update addressed a number of news stories including the New York subway attack and Elon Musk’s bid to takeover Twitter. Jost and Che seemed as confused as Twitter users themselves, wondering what exactly the Tesla CEO would want from the social media platform.

“It’s confusing and depressing, it’s the Giuliani of apps,” Jost said. “It’s like if the Prince of England gave it all up to marry an actress from Suits.”

Of course, the SNL personality was talking about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Melissa Villaseñor rounded out the comedy of the segment portraying Jost’s driver, who tried out his stand-up material.

Lizzo pulled double duty on Saturday, serving as both host and musical guest. While her first time leading the sketch series, the singer made her SNL debut in December 2019.