Saturday Night Live alum Cecily Strong made a surprise appearance at Studio 8H over the weekend, but after playing Rep. Elise Stefanik in run-throughs of the show’s cold open, The Wrap reports she got swapped out for cast member Chloe Troast for reasons that remain unclear.
The sketch attempted to satirize the university presidents who testified before Congress on Tuesday about the increasing number of antisemitic incidents on American college campuses amid the Hamas-Israel war. To complicate matters, one of those academic heads—Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania—resigned from her position on Saturday in light of the blowback. The sketch, meanwhile, received a tepid response from those in the crowd and at home; The Daily Beast contributor Jennifer M. Wood called the cold open “meandering” and a “mess” that didn’t elicit much laughter from the audience.
Attendees at Saturday’s show told The Wrap that Strong—who left SNL last year after 11 seasons—played “MAGA superstar” Stefanik during dress rehearsals. In the aired version of the sketch, Stefanik, as played by Troast, announces that she’ll be “screaming questions at these women like I’m Billy Eichner” before spouting off inquiries such as: “Antisemitism: Yay or nay?” and “Yes or no: Is calling for the genocide of Jews against the code of conduct for Harvard?”
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Later on, she informs the assembled academic leaders that “hate speech has no place on college campuses.” Instead, she insists, “Hate speech belongs in Congress, on Elon Musk’s Twitter, in private dinners with my donors, and in public speeches by my work husband, Donald Trump.”
Representatives for Strong and Saturday Night Live did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on any plans Strong might have had for a guest appearance, and why she did not appear in the aired version of the sketch.
However, a source told the New York Post that it was Strong’s decision to back out at the last minute because she felt “uncomfortable with the sketch.”
