Bowen Yang says Sydney Sweeney wanted ‘SNL’ to make boob jokes

Bowen Yang has nothing but praise for Sydney Sweeney, who hosted Saturday Night Live back in March.

On a Sept. 25 episode of David Spade and Dana Carvey’s Fly on the Wall podcast, Yang described Sweeney as the kind of “host who came in and understood how she was being consumed and perceived already,” which made the writers’ jobs a lot easier. “She came and she was like, ‘Please, everyone make jokes about my boobs.’ Like, she was she was practically begging everybody,” Yang recalled.

Carvey shared that he didn’t think it was a “surprise” that Sweeney “was good, but it’s just good when everything kind of falls in there in the right way on a show, because it can go the other way easily.”

Sweeney was game to star in several sketches that sent up her status as a Gen Z beauty queen, including “Bowen’s Straight,” in which Sweeney allows herself to be seduced by Yang, who’s secretly straight. SNL cast member Heidi Gardner encourages Sweeney to pursue her crush, because Yang “only plays gay on the show because that’s a shortcut to laughs.”

Before taping “Bowen’s Straight,” Yang recalled visiting Sweeney’s dressing room to “let her know, ‘We’re getting an intimacy coordinator, and if you’re at any point uncomfortable, you can tap out. If we make out and you hate it, no problem. We can cut it.'” Sweeney simply replied, “‘Bowen, I’m on Euphoria.'”

Yang remembers Sweeney telling him, “You’re living every gay man’s dream by having sex with me.” The Fire Island star thought, “‘how do you know that?’ Like, she knows that she has such raw sexual power that anyone would be thrilled to simulate sex with her. It’s so crazy.” It was an echo of comments he made to Stephen Colbert in August, that Sweeney “knows that she has all men on lock.”

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Shortly after Sweeney’s SNL episode, Yang appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers, where he told the former head writer of the sketch comedy program that he still felt “a little straight” after playing romantic opposite to both Sweeney and Gina Gershon. “I think I understand why Austin Butler talked like Elvis for a while after the movie,” Yang joked.

Some criticized the show for including multiple sketches revolving around Sweeney’s physical appearance, especially after she made comments in Variety the month her episode aired about the “weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control or say over,” which she feels renders her “not on a human level anymore.”

One particular sketch which stoked ire involved Sweeney earning hundred-fold more tips working at Hooters than her coworkers, played by Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman. But if anyone’s to blame for sexualizing Sweeney, Fineman explained on a May Fly on the Wall appearance, it was her.

“I pitched her the Hooters idea,” Fineman said, “and then she DM’d me, to write it, and then we got in so much trouble for, like, sexualizing Sydney Sweeney.” “But,” Fineman joked in a leering accent, “it was your pervert over here!”

Saturday Night Live will premiere its 50th season on Sept. 28. The show recently announced the hosts and musical guests for the first five episodes, which include Michael Keaton, Chappell Roan, and Stevie Nicks.