Jennifer Aniston opened up about her decision to turn down an offer to host Saturday Night Live before her Friends fame.
“I always thought I was such hot s***. The story of that is all very confusing,” Aniston, 56, explained on an upcoming episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.
Aniston admitted she was fuzzy on the details, saying, “Honestly, today I’d have to ask Lorne, because I remember I was in New York City and I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels. I ran into [Adam] Sandler and [David] Spade in the room right outside. And I knew Sandler forever.”
Shepard, 50, asked Aniston whether she was friends with Sandler, 59, before becoming a household name for her role in Friends.
Everything the Friends Cast Has Said About Relationship With Jennifer Aniston
“Yes, he was very good friends with Charlie Schlatter, who played Ferris Bueller in the television version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” she recalled about starring in the short-lived series before joking, “So, we met at Jerry’s Deli in, like, 1912.”
Aniston’s preconceived notions about SNL ultimately influenced her decision.
“I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude of, ‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show.’ It’s a very male-dominated [show], I would love to be here if it was in the Gilda Radner day,” she continued. “This is the brain that semi-remembers things that are back that far. Something like that. I can’t remember, but I just remember Friends then happened.”
The actress ultimately hosted SNL in 1999 and again in 2004. Aniston previously rehashed the conversation she had with Michaels, 80, where she initially shut down the offer to appear on the show.
“I was so young and dumb, and I went into Lorne’s office and I was like, ‘I hear women are not respected on this show,’” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. “I don’t remember exactly what I said next, but it was something like, ‘I would prefer if it were like the days of Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin.’”
Aniston continued: “It was such a boys’ club back then, but who the f*** was I to be saying this to Lorne Michaels? So, yes, adorably that happened, and I’ve hosted Saturday Night Live a couple of times, and I love it so much.”
Over the years, Aniston referred to herself as “such a young twit” for her conversation with Michaels, sharing on The Howard Stern Show in 2019, “I was like, ‘I think that women need to be treated better here.’ Because it was such a boys’ club. You’re just not the brightest when you’re in your early 20s. I didn’t lecture him, I was just saying what I would hope if I was to do this, what I would hope it to be.”
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
