SNL Didn’t Hold Back About the Ongoing Harvey Weinstein Scandal This Week

Saturday Night Live took aim at film executive Harvey Weinstein amid explosive allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.

Though the show received criticism last week for failing to address the ongoing Weinstein scandal that impacted so many in the industry and beyond, actors minced no words Saturday evening when blasting the disgraced film producer.

On “Weekend Update,” co-anchor Colin Jost dug into Weinstein immediately. Describing Apple’s new emojis of a person at a spa, an emoji face vomiting and another with a shushing finger, Jost said these now give “emoji fans the ability to describe what it was like to work for Harvey Weinstein.”

As for Weinstein’s alleged plans to go to Europe for sex rehab, Jost said he didn’t think that would help.

“He doesn’t need sex rehab,” he continued. “He needs a specialized facility where there are no women, no contact with the outside world, metal bars and it’s a prison.”

Co-anchor Michael Che continued Jost’s comments on Weinstein, noting that it’s hard for a comedian to make jokes about a subject as serious as sexual assault. But with Weinstein, Che said, it’s easy to make fun of him since he looks like “chewed bubble gum rolled in cat hair” and a “well-dressed skin tag.”

“Weinstein told reporters that he was seeking help and added, ‘We all make mistakes,'” Che said. “No, man. A mistake is me walking into the wrong bathroom and using it anyway because I was crowning.”

“You assaulted dozens of women. That’s not a mistake — that’s a full season of Law and Order,” Che said.

The show also criticized Weinstein in another sketch, where a panel of women in film spoke about sexual harassment in Hollywood on “Actress Round Table.” Emmy winner Kate McKinnon reprised her role as Debette Goldry, an older actress who was once married to a Nazi and nonchalantly recounts her experience with harassment in the industry.

“I actually did have one meeting with Harvey, OK?” McKinnon said as Goldry. “I was invited to his hotel room, and when I arrived he was naked, hanging upside down from a monkey bar. He tried to trick me into thinking his genitals were actually his face. It almost worked—the resemblance is uncanny.”

The allegations against Weinstein span decades, according to reports in the New York Times and the New Yorker. The reports spurred other women to come forward with stories of sexual harassment in Hollywood both from Weinstein and from other high-powered people in the industry.

A number of other female employees and actors have come forward with more allegations against Weinstein in recent days, including actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. McKinnon’s character tapped into that trend, noting that actresses in her time in Hollywood had a fairly blunt code to speak in about harassment and abuse they endured.

“Back then we had a secret code among us actresses to warn each other about the creeps,” she said. “The code was, ‘He raped me,’ that way if men were listening they would tune us out, easy peasy.”

When reports of the allegations first emerged earlier this month, Weinstein released a statement to the New York Times, denying any non-consensual sexual activity and saying he was working on improving his behavior. “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it,” he wrote in the statement.