Jenny Slate Says Getting Booted From ‘SNL’ Over An F-Bomb Was “Humiliating”

There’s one cardinal rule on Saturday Night Live: do not say rude words. Lorne Michaels hates those bloody cuss words on primetime.

Jenny Slate, who is now one of the hottest comedic talents around, knows all too well the grim result of saying a swear on SNL. The actress didn’t last a season after dropping the f-bomb in her very first episode opposite Kristen Wiig –one of the only times a swear has made it to air on the legendary variety show. Playing a biker chick, she delivered the fateful line:  “You stood up for yourself, and do you know what? I fucking love you for that.”

Her face after the fact very much indicated she knew what she had done.
In an interview released yesterday, Slate told The Guardian that it really, really wasn’t something she anticipated to be fired for. She also said that it was a huge blow to her self-confidence in the year after.
Once I was fired, I got a specific type of stage fright — a narrative inside of me: ‘These people don’t like you and they don’t want you to be here. And whatever that magic is that clicks in when you’re on stage, it’s not going to happen tonight.’ My entire self-worth was challenged. I didn’t want to quit standup just because I got fired from one job, so I fought against it. I went to a hypnotherapist – it sounds crazy, but it worked.

But honestly, she says, she’s sick of having to talk about it, considering it happened eight years ago.

It does bother me to have to talk about something that was one second of my life a decade ago. It was embarrassing, devastating, humiliating, a bummer of a mistake. But since I made that tiny mistake, so much has happened. It feels like, if I were a guy, I’d have to talk about it a little bit, but, because I’m a woman, I have to talk about it forever. I want to honour all the good things I’ve done on purpose, instead of the stupid thing I did by mistake 10 years ago,
This follows the sentiments she raised in an earlier interview a couple of years ago, where she said that her accidental swear was probably better value than whatever shit passes for comedy in other parts of the TV world:
People should see a woman saying a swear word by mistake rather than seeing a sketch where two people get raped by a gorilla. I don’t understand why that’s more acceptable. Or all the sexist and racist stuff that’s, like, on Two and a Half Men. I don’t care at all. I don’t feel bad. And I’m not sorry, but I am sorry to myself for how I treated myself that year.

Our opinion? Swear as much as ya like.

Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty Images.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV