SNL to re-air episode hosted by Betty White in wake of legendary actress's death
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Saturday Night Live will join the countless admirers paying tribute to Betty White after the legendary actress's death Friday. The NBC sketch show announced that it will re-air a 2010 episode she hosted in the show's usual 11:30 p.m. ET time slot Saturday.
The episode originally aired on May 8, 2010 (the day before Mother's Day), and featured musical guest Jay-Z. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels finally booked White following a Facebook campaign to get her on the show, after she repeatedly declined offers to host in the past.
"After three rejections, I stopped asking," Michaels told EW at the time. "But it seemed amusing to me as the Facebook thing started." (During her opening monologue, White quipped, "When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host Saturday Night Live, I didn't know what Facebook was.")
Still, the actress was reluctant to take the gig. "I told my agent, 'Thank them so much, I appreciate it, but no thank you,"' she recalled to EW. "People have had such an overdose of me — they don't need me anymore! And he said, 'You've got to do it. If you don't do it, I'll divorce you!"'
The episode, which also saw several all-star alums return to the show, includes the Golden Girls star in various sketches, portraying an old woman who vexes a census taker played by Tina Fey, a prisoner's grandmother who helps scare some bullies straight, and a baker on NPR's Delicious Dish who's very proud of her, er, muffin.
White died Friday at age 99, just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. Her passing prompted an outpouring of grief from fellow celebrities, former costars, and general admirers, among them former SNL cast member Seth Meyers, who recalled that White was "the only SNL host I ever saw get a standing ovation at the afterparty. A party at which she ordered a vodka and a hotdog and stayed til the bitter end."
SNL will return with new episodes later this year. The episode with White as host will re-air Saturday, Jan. 1, at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT on NBC following a 1-hour vintage episode from 2019 hosted by Eddie Murphy.
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