Scarlett Johansson is finally sharing her reaction to that joke on Saturday Night Live.
The Jurassic World Rebirth actress, 40, was the punchline of a crude joke between her husband, Colin Jost, and his “Weekend Update” cohost, Michael Che, during their annual joke swap in December 2024. “Costco has removed the roast beef sandwich from its menu. I’ve been eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid,” Jost read out a joke written for him by Che. Johansson, who happened to be backstage, was shown on camera and appeared shocked by the joke.
In a cover interview with InStyle published Tuesday, March 11, Johansson said, “It was so vulgar. I just can’t believe that they went there. I was like — it was so gross. It was really gross. And, like, old-school gross.”
Despite her shock, Johansson took the quip in her stride. “My experience of it was so funny,” she noted to the outlet, explaining that she was given a heads-up that Che had written a joke about her for Jost to perform.
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Johansson continued, “I was like, ‘I mean, it’s a vagina joke, how bad could it be?’ And then as soon as the Costco photo came up, I was like, ‘No! No, Michael!’”
“The fact that it took on a full To Catch a Predator-style reveal or whatever, that was so intense,” Johansson said. “All of a sudden, it was like a whole bunch of people holding up lights, and a guy with a video camera. They were waiting for me to react. I felt insane. I was like, ‘I think I’m going to faint.’”
According to Johansson, she and Jost, 42, were still in shock when they got into bed at 4 a.m. after the show. “I was like, ‘My nerves are shot.’ And Colin said, ‘Me too,’” she said.
Jost previously admitted that his wife was “genuinely so shocked” by the risqué joke.
“I was, obviously, surprised by everything, but they gave her a heads-up,” Jost said during a January 20 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “They were like, ‘Hey, would you be OK if Michael made a little, like, kind of vagina joke at some point?’”
Johansson was “open to it,” according to her husband. However, the joke was far from what either of them expected.
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“I didn’t know where it was going and then the graphic came up for Arby’s,” Jost recalled. “Scarlett is backstage, like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s what it is?’”
Host Jimmy Fallon asked Jost if he got into “trouble” with his wife, to which he responded, “I’m in trouble, I think, with a lot of people.”
Jost and Johansson met at a SNL afterparty in May 2017. They married in October 2020 and welcomed son Cosmo in August 2021. (Johansson also shares daughter Rose, 10, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac.)
