10 Best Moments From Jacob Elordi’s SNL Hosting Debut

Actor Jacob Elordi hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the first time on Jan. 20 in the show’s inaugural episode of 2024—and lit up social media.

The Australian actor, who played his breakout role in Netflix’s romantic comedy The Kissing Booth before starring in HBO’s TV series Euphoria, had leading performances this year in Sofia Coppola’s biopic Priscilla and psychological thriller Saltburn.

In true SNL form, Elordi joined cast members to mock recent news events, popular figures, and the latest trends. Multiple sketches played up Elordi’s height—the actor is 6 ft. 5 in.—and his dashing looks that caused his fanbase across the internet to swoon.

The episode also featured performances from Reneé Rapp, singer and star of the musical and new movie version of Mean Girls, actress Rachel McAdams, who played Regina George in the original Mean Girls, and rapper Megan Thee Stallion. 

Here are the top 10 moments from Elordi’s hosting debut.

1. Jacob Elordi joins mock ad for Alaska Airlines

In classic satire, Elordi and cast members roasted Alaska Airlines after the company made headlines when a door plug blew out on a plane, prompting an emergency landing and triggering a federal investigation.

Fake Alaska Airlines employees in the ad made light of the disaster by introducing their new slogan “You didn’t die and you got a cool story” and featuring an interview with a “real passenger” who said that on the flight, she was terrified, but now “I’m the coolest person at the office.”

The actors joked that since the incident, they’ve made a few “small changes,” with Elordi saying the airline was going to tighten some bolts “that hold the plane together.”

On a serious note, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, who is investigating the incident, said it was fortunate everyone on the plane survived and passengers, who said they thought they were going to die, have sued Alaska Airline and Boeing.

2. Jacob Elordi pretends to make out with SNL cast member Chloe Fineman

In a fake reality TV dating show, “Crown Your Short King,” SNL regular Fineman was on the verge of choosing between two bachelors under 5 ft. 8 in. Then Elordi appeared as a last minute entry and immediately turned the bachelorette’s head, despite saying he has a girlfriend and needs to borrow $200,000.

The final clip of the sketch showed Fineman and Elordi pretending to make out, prompting lively responses from social media.

3. Jacob Elordi jokes about explicit Saltburn scene

In his opening monologue, Elordi joked that viewers may know him from his recent film Saltburn––not because of the movie, but because of a TikTok of a sex scene in a grave. He apologized if people saw the movie with their parents and said “you’re welcome” for those who saw it with their girlfriends, instead.

4. Jacob Elordi lip-reads celebrities including Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

On a mock TV entertainment news show, two hosts brought on Elordi and SNL cast member Bowen Yang as professional lip-readers with hilariously bad interpretations of celebrity moments. 

In one clip of singer Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce, Elordi faked Kelce saying “it’s crazy we both work at football stadiums.”

The lip readers talked over another video of actor Timothée Chalamet and his girlfriend, reality TV show star and makeup mogul Kylie Jenner, pretending that Chalamet was saying he thought Jenner’s sister Kim Kardashian was her mom. 

In another recording featuring an appearance from Rapp, the trio pretended that actor Gwyneth Paltrow admitted to murder while on the stand during the famous trial where she was accused of intentionally crashing into another skier. She won that case with $1 for damages.

5. Jacob Elordi pretends he doesn’t know the word “rejection”

In one sketch, Elordi appeared as a non-descript famous actor in an acting class with struggling performers.

When they asked how he made it big, he said that he walked off a plane on his first trip to Hollywood and Selena Gomez walked up, said he was gorgeous, and asked him to play her boyfriend in a music video.

When asked how he deals with rejection, he pretended he’s genuinely not familiar with the word.  

6. Jacob Elordi is fawned over at a women-only AA meeting

In an edgier sketch, Elordi showed up at a women-only Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, just after another man got kicked out. He confessed he’s an alcoholic, but when he isn’t drinking, turns to acting out sexually with women. In one line that gained attention on the internet, Elordi said that he “wears those poor women like gas masks.”

At the end of the sketch, the dejected man from earlier came back only to exclaim “guess you can only get sobriety around here if you’re hot.”

7. Jacob Elordi takes questions from lovestruck audience members

In his opening dialogue, Elordi said he’s not very good at public speaking and instead took questions from staged audience members—including from one woman who said she just wanted to look at him.

8. Jacob Elordi’s wedding gets interrupted by fianceé’s former Hinge date

In a clip mocking bad dating app experiences, Yang interrupted the wedding of a past Hinge date as she was about to get married to Elordi. Yang and Elordi eventually bonded over their common love of cartoons and ran off together.

9. Jacob Elordi gets frustrated with bowling alley videos

On a first date at a bowling alley, Elordi and his co-star became increasingly perplexed at animated videos after each round that showed the score—which started off lighthearted and turned zany and even troubling. Elordi got frustrated until the bowling alley announced at the end of the date to “have sex” and the pair went off stage together happily.

10. Jacob Elordi acts in a skit alongside Rachel McAdams

Fans loved seeing Elordi and McAdams enjoying a scene together in the aforementioned acting class skit. The pair then shared a sweet hug at the end of the show, with McAdams also blowing kisses to Rapp before the credits started to roll. McAdams, Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion, who’ve all performed in Mean Girls movies or songs, also took a picture staging the famous meme of three Spidermans standing in a circle pointing at each other.