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Scarlett Johansson can’t handle her husband’s annual joke swaps on “Saturday Night Live.”
The “Black Widow” star has been married to comedian Colin Jost for four years now and, while she enjoys watching him blindly read offensive jokes written by “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che, one crack during the season finale in May purportedly made her “black out.”
With a smiling picture of his wife behind him, Jost bravely joked: “ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in ‘Her,’ which I’ve never bothered to watch because without that body, what’s the point of listening?”
Johansson visibly cringed Thursday when the clip came up on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
“And that’s like a tame version,” Johansson revealed, “if you guys have ever seen the joke swap. … We need to go into, like, witness protection after that night. Like, I am absolutely terrified we’re going to be targeted, it’s so bad. I black out for that period of the night.”
“I actually don’t remember it,” she added. “As soon as the picture came up, I was like, ‘Ah!’”
The Oscar-nominated actor was understandably embarrassed by the cringe-inducing crack, but the segment itself has long become a fan-favorite of casual “SNL” viewers. The premise inherently encourages Jost and Che to write the most hilarious offensive jokes, after all.
Johansson has been a subject of this tradition before, most notably in December.
Kristy Sparow via Getty Images
Jost was famously forced to mock his wife’s filmography at the time in Che’s pre-written joke, which seemed to end lightly with, “I’m kidding honey, I love all your movies,” before he added: “If you ask me, you’re an even better Black Widow than Coretta Scott King.”
Though the “Her” joke was arguably far less egregious, Johansson said Thursday that she “completely hit the deck” upon hearing it. She went on to note that Jost’s and Che’s jokes are “like a little gift to each other,” before reiterating just how anxious they make her.
“It is brutal,” Johansson told Clarkson. “I feel like every year it gets worse. It’s just terrible.”
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