Scarlett Johansson was forced to relive a viral Saturday Night Live joke swap on Today With Jenna & Friends. But fortunately for the Fly Me To The Moon star, most of the jokes her husband Colin Jost and his co-anchor Michael Che cracked during the recent Weekend Update segment were so “vulgar” that Jenna Bush Hager couldn’t even air them on morning television.
SNL stars Jost and Che perform an annual joke swap where they are forced to read jokes the other has written for them. But the recent segment went mega viral for capturing Johansson’s candid reaction to the several NSFW jokes Che wrote for Jost to say on the air. (You can watch the full segment below.)
“Oh my god, it got so vulgar,” Johansson told Bush Hager on her last day co-hosting Today With Jenna & Friends this week. She explained that she had been approached by SNL to participate in the segment.
“I said, I don’t want to get canceled or divorced, so those are my requirements, those are my boundaries,” she recalled. They ultimately settled on recording her live reaction to the jokes, which the actress said turned out to be a very “surreal” experience.
“Honestly Jenna, I felt it was like To Catch A Predator when the lights kind of came on me and suddenly there was a whole audience and suddenly I was there with, thankfully, a very stiff cocktail,” Johansson quipped. “The jokes were so vulgar. That’s genuine shock. Can you believe that?”
“It got to where we really couldn’t show it on morning television,” Bush Hager added.
Johansson noted that actress Emma Stone was also in the studio to help induct Martin Short into the five-timers club. “[She] turned to me and said, ‘That was not okay. That was not okay!’” she recalled. “My heart was racing, my eyes were watering, my hands were like this. It was surreal.”
Bush Hager clarified for viewers at home that Jost did not write the jokes himself, he was just “blindly” reading the jokes Che crafted for him.
The annual joke swap has hit a critical point, however, that has Johansson wondering if Che “has a vendetta” against her and her husband. “I honestly feel that Michael is trying to get us permanently removed,” she joked. “Michael why, what did I do to you, Michael?”
But Johansson may be able to get Che back if he decides to join her on Today With Jenna & Friends. The blockbuster star has enjoyed her time co-hosting the show so much she is vying to come back sooner rather than later, and Bush Hager pitched an idea for a segment where Johansson and Che do a “teleprompter swap” to “get him back” when she returns.
Today with Hoda & Jenna airs on weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.