In the weekend’s least surprising news, Saturday Night Live drummed up a White Lotus parody about how stupid and vain President Donald Trump, his family, and his administration are. The sketch also poked fun at the appearance of Aimee Lou Wood, who played Chelsea on the third season of the HBO hit. Wood herself didn’t love it. Posting to her Instagram story while in an “honest mood,” she admitted (via The Hollywood Reporter), “I did find the SNL thing mean and unfunny.”
In “The White POTUS,” the Ratliff family are depicted as the Trumps and Walton Goggins’ Rick is depicted as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But Chelsea is not depicted as any kind of political figure, just Sarah Sherman with bulging eyes and large false teeth to mimic Wood’s. Taking it a step further, when John Hamm’s RFK Jr. mentions taking fluoride out of the drinking water, Sherman chirps in a British accent, “Flouride? What’s that?”
It’s easy to see why Wood might object to the portrayal. She’s the only non-political figure in the sketch getting roasted, and she’s already spent much of the White Lotus press tour fielding questions about her teeth. In a GQ interview earlier this month, she said that the obsession over the gap in her front teeth made her feel like there’s something “goofy” about her that she hasn’t “fixed.”She shared, “It makes me really happy that it’s symbolizing rebellion and freedom, but there’s a limit. The whole conversation is just about my teeth, and it makes me a bit sad because I’m not getting to talk about my work. They think it’s nice because they’re not criticizing.” She added, “And, I have to go there… I don’t know if it was a man would we be talking about it this much? It’s still going on about a woman’s appearance.”
On her Instagram Story, Wood said the hurtful SNL joke was “such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago.” She wrote, “Yes, take the piss for sure — that’s what the show is about — but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?” The actor went on to add that she didn’t fault Sherman for it (“Not hating on her, hating on the concept”), though she felt the performance could’ve been better: “At least get the accent right seriously. I respect accuracy, even if it’s mean.” In a separate IG Story (via The New York Post), she wrote, “I actually love being taken the piss out of when it’s clever and in good spirits. But the joke was about fluoride. I have big gap teeth not bad teeth,” she wrote. “I don’t mind caricature — I understand that’s what SNL is. But the rest of the skit was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on.”
Wood went on to reveal she’d had “thousands” of encouraging messages from fans, some of which she reposted (including one that accused SNL of “1970s misogyny”). And unsurprisingly, the viral moment prompted a response from the show: “I’ve had apologies from SNL,” she wrote on her social media. But will she get to sit next to Sarah Sherman and roast her back on Weekend Update á la Pete Davidson and Rep. Dan Crenshaw? Only time will tell.
