Chris Rock wasn’t afraid to tackle the headlines in his latest Saturday Night Live opening monologue.
For the Saturday, December 14, episode, Rock, 59, addressed the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and his suspected killer, Luigi Mangione, with some controversial jokes. The fourth-time host reacted to the situation toward the beginning of his monologue, saying that the media seems fixated on Mangione’s looks instead of the alleged crime.
“We got Luigi. You know, and that’s good,” Rock told the live audience. “I really feel sorry for the family. Everybody’s fixated on how good-looking this guy looks. If he looked like Jonah Hill, no one would care. They’d already given him the chair already — he’d be dead.”
Rock continued: “But he actually killed a man — a man with a family, a man with kids. I have condolences. I have real condolences for the healthcare CEO. This is a real person, you know? But you also got to go, ‘You know, sometimes drug dealers get shot.’”
“I mean, you’ve seen The Wire, right?” Rock quipped.
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Mangione, 26, was arrested on gun charges in Pennsylvania on Monday, December 9, and will later be extradited to New York to face charges in connection to Thompson’s December 4 death at 50. Mangione’s attorney said he intends to plead not guilty and wants to examine the evidence, according to CBS News.
Thompson was in New York for an annual UnitedHealthcare investors meeting when he was killed. He is survived by his wife, Paulette, and their two sons.
Rock wasn’t the only person to take on the CEO’s death and Mangione’s online notoriety on SNL this week. The cold open featured cast member Sarah Sherman spoofing crime commentator Nancy Grace as she addressed the public reaction to the arrest of Mangione.
“And of course, everyone online celebrated the hard work of law enforcement in apprehending this dangerous criminal,” 31-year-old Sherman, as Grace, said. “Just kidding, y’all psychos made him a sex symbol.”
She continued: “That’s right, the healthcare assassin Luigi Mangione has got women and gay guys alike hot and bothered.”
Sherman was joined by fellow cast member Kenan Thompson for the skit, who played a character in the Pennsylvania McDonald’s where Mangione was arrested.
“Well, Nancy, I’ve been eating McDonald’s every day for three years,” Kenan said. “I got Type 10 diabetes. Blue Cross? Bitch, I got blue foot. You know what my health insurance plan is called? Hoping it goes away.”
Sherman’s character also asked Kenan if he thought people were actually attracted to Mangione.
“Well, I mean, you can look at him and tell he had h—,” Thompson said. “I mean, women love bad boys.”
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Colin Jost also mentioned Mangione on “Weekend Update,” poking fun at his arrest and future in the news.
“This week, America continued the delicate, sensitive debate over who will play this guy in the Netflix miniseries,” he began as a picture of Mangione flashed on the screen. “After police arrested suspected CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, they found a note on him expressing anger at corporate America. Yet he went to Starbucks before the shooting and then was caught at McDonald’s. So perhaps his greatest crime was hypocrisy. The McDonald’s where the shooter got caught has been getting one-star Yelp reviews to punish them for snitching. First of all, who looks at Yelp reviews of McDonald’s? The only Yelp review of McDonald’s should be, ‘Was open. Five stars.’”
As a throwback photo of Jost as a nerdy high school appeared, the coanchor said: “Everyone who went to high school with the alleged shooter said they were shocked that he could become an assassin. Whereas everyone I went to high school with was shocked I didn’t.”
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
