Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has seemingly admitted the show chose not to roast Harvey Weinstein because the embattled film heavyweight is from New York.
When Michaels was asked as he was leaving SNL’s after-party at 4am why the show avoided the Weinstein controversy, the producer smiled and responded: ‘It’s a New York thing.’
The show had earlier been criticized for not mentioning the sexual harassment allegations leveled against Weinstein this week.
But DailyMail.com has since learned that the cast did try out a Weinstein joke during dress rehearsal – it just never made it to air.
When Lorne Michaels was asked as he was leaving SNL’s after-party at 4am why the show avoided the Harvey Weinstein controversy, the producer responded: ‘It’s a New York thing’
‘I remember a joke being made about him during weekend update… I don’t remember the joke, I just remember that it got a big reaction from the audience,’ an audience member revealed.
SNL regularly pokes fun of President Donald Trump and he has previously lashed out at the show for their impersonations of him.
Trump also hails from New York but that hasn’t stopped him from being a SNL target.
Social media users were quick to slam the show’s hypocrisy in not going after one of Hollywood’s biggest players following the allegations.
‘Why didn’t big mouth Michael Che say anything about Harvey Weinstein on SNL ‘Weekend Update’? He’s got so much opinion about everything else,’ Pastor Darrell Scott tweeted.
Another person tweeted: ‘That is why the political left is OK w/ abandoning but the celebrity left (SNL late night hosts) isn’t.’
‘Really?! NO mention of Harvey on SNL WeekendUpdate?,’ another user wrote. ‘This is starting to feel like a conspiracy…’
Silence: SNL did not mention or address the allegations against Harvey Weinstein once during the show hosted by Gal Gadot (pictured above)
Harvey Weinstein arrives at his home in NYC’s West Village on Thursday night after revealing he has had ‘really tough conversations’ with his family after the allegations of sexual harassment against him
Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels was filmed leaving the show’s after-party in New York at about 4am
It comes after a bombshell New York Times report on Thursday revealed Weinstein’s long record of misconduct.
The report said he had reached at least eight settlements with women including one who said she was coerced into giving him a massage while he was naked.
Weinstein is said to have asked a young Ashley Judd to watch him shower and paid Rose McGowan $100,000 under a settlement for an incident shortly before her breakthrough role in ‘Scream’.
SNL did cover a number of other relevant topics from the week.
The show ditched its traditional comedic cold open in favor of a solemn tribute by country music star Jason Aldean to both the victims of last Sunday night’s massacre in Las Vegas, as well as late rocker Tom Petty.
Aldean was in the middle of performing on stage at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas last Sunday when Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on the 22,000 people in the crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
Meanwhile, Petty died this week from cardiac arrest at the age of 66.
With OJ Simpson’s release from prison after serving nine years for armed robbery, Saturday Night Live took the opportunity to imagine what a Bumble date would look like for the former football great.
Kenan Thompson played Simpson on a date with a young European woman – portrayed by SNL host Gal Gadot – from a war-torn country that wasn’t able to receive news about his double-murder trial in the 1990s.
Sam Smith was also this week’s musical guest, performing two heartfelt songs from his latest album ‘The Thrill of it All.’
The silence by Hollywood concerning one of their own has been overlooked by few.
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., took to Twitter to first dare Oscars-host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel to comment on the scandal, writing: ‘Thoughts on Weinstein? #askingforafriend.’
Kimmel had just poked fun at Donald Trump for complaining about the ‘unfunny’ late night hosts who constantly berated him.
He swiftly responded to Trump Jr.’s challenge but didn’t take exactly take the bait, instead retorting with a quip about how the New York Times – the Trumps’ media nemesis – broke the Weinstein story.
‘You mean that big story from the failing, liberal, one-sided New York Times? I think it is disgusting,’ he responded.
Ramping up the tone of their exchange, Kimmel fired another tweet with a clip of his father’s infamous 2005 Access Hollywood ‘grab them by the p***y’ tape’.
Tina Fey who was an SNL cast member and previously the head writer on the long running show smiles at disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein at the 84th Annual Academy Awards in LA in 2012
Victims: Ashley Judd (left in 1997) and Rose McGowan (right in 2004) were revealed to be two of Weinstein’s alleged victims by the Times
Kimmel has faced criticism along with fellow late night TV hosts Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers and Jimmy Fallon for not making mention of the Weinstein scandal in their shows this week.
Actress Rose McGowan has slammed the women of Hollywood for their silence.
Demanding to know where the ‘ladies of Hollywood’ were on this issue, McGowan – who is believed to have been paid a $100,000 settlement by Weinstein after an incident in the mid-1990s – appeared to attack the mute A-listers.
Indeed, A-list actresses like Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow who have used their fame to encourage and support women and who have worked with Weinstein have said nothing.
They are not alone in their silence either, as many other women who have sang the praises of Weinstein while speaking out against harassment also went mute as of Friday afternoon, including: Kate Hudson, Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Toni Collette, Minnie Driver and Uma Thurman.
Given the number of lawsuits that the company has settled over the years there is of course a chance that some of these women cannot speak because they signed a NDA or do not want to speak on account of their own personal experiences.
On Friday, four board members including Weinstein’s brother Bob, said that it was ‘important for him to get professional help’ as they confirmed he was leaving the company he co-founded.
They left it unclear how long he would be gone, only saying that the ‘next steps depend on Harvey’s therapeutic progress, the outcome of the Board’s independent investigation and Harvey’s own personal decisions’.
Kenan Thompson played OJ Simpson on a date with a young European woman – portrayed by SNL host Gal Gadot – from a war-torn country that wasn’t able to receive news about his double-murder trial in the 1990s
Aldean was invited onto SNL where he paid homage to the victims before playing a rendition of I Won’t Back Down, the 1989 hit single by Petty