On May 14, Selena Gomez surprised the audience with her vibrant presence as host of Saturday Night Live, alongside Post Malone as the musical guest. Gomez appeared as a musical guest on a 2016 episode of Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey; nonetheless, it was her first time presenting the American late-night sketch comedy and variety show.
Gomez, like all of the previous hosts on SNL, began her monologue by expressing her delight and discussing her outstanding acting career, which began when she was just seven years old. She rose to fame as a loving and funny teenage wizard Alex Russo in “Wizards of Waverly Place” after making her on-screen debut as Gianna in the children’s series “Barney & Friends” from 2002 to 2004. Going on to have a great singing career and a name for herself as an executive producer on major television projects like Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why,” Gomez has left her Disney days behind.
She most recently acted as Mabel Mora in Hulu’s true-crime comedy “Only Murders in the Building,” opposite Steve Martin and Martin Short, with whom she will reunite for the second season. Given Martin and Short’s status as SNL veterans, Gomez thought it was only natural to seek their help on hosting for the first time. Short joked that he thinks Martin was using his credit card while Martin encouraged her to “trust no one.”
Miley Cyrus, another legendary Disney star and old friend, was also contacted for assistance by Gomez, as Cyrus presented the show in 2015. Gomez delivered Cyrus’ advice of “Just be yourself and have fun” with a spot-on impression of Cyrus’ thick Southern accent, which was received with a scream of laughter and applause from the audience, as Gomez remarked that it was the perfect reason to imitate Cyrus.
Given SNL’s history of forging celebrity pairings such as Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost and Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson, a single and ready-to-mingle Gomez revealed that she was open to finding love on set. It was pleasant to see Gomez embrace the single life after her love life had been dissected and exploited by the press for years on end, as SNL cast members rushed up to volunteer as her new love interest shortly afterward. Despite being dark for four and a half years following the release of her “Revival” album, her progress in maturity and self-love has been absolutely remarkable, as evidenced by her 2020 “Rare” album, which saw her rediscover her self-confidence after taking the time to properly discover herself.
In typical SNL tradition, Gomez appeared in nine satirical skits with the rest of the cast, ranging from a sassy Bratz Doll in “Bratz Dolls” with Bowen Yang and Aidy Bryant to a perfectly elegant British princess in “Three Daughters” with Ego Nwodim and Kate McKinnon.
While she played a clueless understudy who only had 30 minutes to rehearse before going on stage in “A Peek at Pico,” with Melissa Anne Villasenor as TV show host Vanessa, she played a clueless understudy who only had 30 minutes to rehearse before going on stage in “Irish Play,” with Kenan Thompson taking over as an anxious director who had to remind his actors their lines every second in “Irish Play.”
In “Guidance Counselors,” Gomez portrayed a supermodel who returned to her high school as an alumnus at the behest of the school’s guidance counselors to urge despondent students to pursue a modeling career rather than attend college.
In “Intuition,” she played a troubled girlfriend who suspected her boyfriend of cheating on her, prompting her to check all of his text messages before smashing his stuff despite finding no evidence of him cheating and allowing her intuition to get the best of her.
“Old Enough! Long Term Partners!” is a parody of Netflix’s Japanese show “Old Enough!” in which youngsters run errands on their own for the first time while a camera crew accompanies them, with the exception that SNL substituted the children with “useless” long-term boyfriends. Gomez, who played Kelsey, put her long-term boyfriend Matt, who was played by Mikey Day, to the test by having him perform errands for her, such as buying groceries and cosmetics.
Post Malone made a brief appearance as a huge baby in “Baby Monitor” as one of the episode’s special guest appearances. Gomez played an adolescent who invited her friends over to hang out at her house despite the fact that she was meant to be babysitting two babies in this comedy. Martin appeared in the movie episode “American Inventor,” in which Gomez narrated a profile on Arthur Gizmo, a fictional inventive engineer behind the whoopee cushion, who was played by Martin.
The entertaining antics had Gomez breaking character at times, but she immediately regained her composure and finished the comedy. Gomez’s quick wit and natural acting abilities, on the other hand, melded in with the cast of Saturday Night Live as if she were one of them. Whether it’s her singing career, acting ability, being an executive producer, operating her successful make-up empire “Rare Beauty,” starring in her own culinary show “Selena + Chef,” or creating her own cookware brand “Our Place,” Gomez has and will continue to astonish the world with her talents. Gomez is certainly just getting started, and we can’t wait to see what she has planned for the future.
