Read this Insider Story about SNL

Some of our faves may be implicated.

Read this Insider Story about SNL

Yesterday Insider published a feature on SNL, specifically the ways SNL has been a hostile workplace for young women. The piece is paywalled, frustratingly, because it deserves much wider attention than it's received. I think Insider is worth a subscription if you can afford it, but you can check out aggregations in the Daily Beast and Mic. (I will again encourage you to buy a subscription before noting that, if you must, you can also read the whole thing via the Internet Archive.)

Here are just a few interesting passages:

The young staffer said that when she was an intern during the 1999-2000 season, she attended an after-after-party at an "SNL" staffer's apartment. At one point in the night, a 30-something Sanz put on a leather glove and started joking that it covered a fake hand. She said when she left the apartment's living area and went into a bedroom Sanz followed her, closed the door, and asked whether he could touch her breasts with his gloved hand.

"I have a fake hand under this glove," she recalled Sanz saying. "I'm so self-conscious about it — the only way I'll know if it feels real is if I can touch your boob."
Even Tina Fey, the much-lauded first female head writer of "SNL," sometimes made jokes that crossed a line, said Daro, the former writer.

Daro said he once brought his teenage son and his son's girlfriend to an "SNL" show. The next time he saw Fey, he said, she asked Daro whether he had "finger-popped" his son's 14-year-old girlfriend on the drive home.

"I wasn't amused," he said. Fey did not respond to a request for comment.
One former intern said she had no problem getting into several "SNL" after-parties and after-after parties, even though she was only 18 at the time. "I was a baby," she said. "And I'm 5 feet tall. Even now I get carded. So at 18 I must've looked like a middle schooler."

If you find that all to be a little too disturbing for you this morning, the good news is you can turn to just about any other publication for the usual stream of worshipful SNL coverage.


Header image via YouTube/NBC.