Inde Navarrette used her SNL hosting debut to fire back at Shane Gillis.
The “Obsession” star, 25, took the Studio 8H stage on Halloween night and opened her monologue by drawing a sharp contrast between herself and her on-screen persona. “You probably know me from the movie Obsession. And a lot of people ask me if I’m anything like my character Nikki and I’m like, ‘No… no, no, don’t do that,'” she told the audience, mimicking the character’s most infamous line.
She quickly pivoted to her real-life relationship for a visual gag. “But the thing is, is I’m nothing like my character in Obsession. Like, my boyfriend is here tonight to support me and we have such a chill relationship, right?” At that point, the camera cut to her boyfriend in the audience, gagged and wrapped in duct tape.
Navarrette then shifted gears to address a recent controversy that had rocked the same stage. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to be in a Marvel movie. And I know it’s really important for Marvel that you get really fit, so I’ve been working out a lot, so every morning I put on my little whore outfit and I hit the gym,” she continued.
The pointed remark landed as a direct counter to Gillis, 38, who had hosted SNL on October 10. During his monologue, the comedian had told the audience: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like wh*res now?” He went on to describe women wearing tight, brightly colored gym shorts and joked that men weren’t allowed to look at them in case they happened to be filming a TikTok.
Gillis’s joke triggered widespread backlash online, with critics labeling it misogynistic for shaming women about their workout attire. The controversy was hardly uncharted territory for the comedian, who has a fraught history with the show.
Back in 2019, Gillis had been announced as a new cast member, but SNL swiftly dropped him after old podcast clips resurfaced showing him using anti-Asian racial slurs and homophobic language. Despite that firing, he has returned to host multiple times over the past three years.
Navarrette’s clapback earned praise from viewers who saw it as calling out a double standard in comedy. The actor, who has been cast as Rogue in an upcoming X-Men film, managed to pack the jab into a monologue that also promoted her horror credentials and Marvel future.
The Halloween episode marked Navarrette’s first time hosting the long-running sketch series, coming off her breakout role in “Obsession” that has established her as a rising scream queen. She used the platform to assert her comedic range beyond the thriller genre that first put her on the map.
SNL has not commented on either host’s monologue material.