Saturday Night Live has had its fair share of controversial moments over the years, yet only a select few participants hold the distinction of being banned for life.
The reasons for getting banned are weird and varied but all pretty funny. Sinead O’Connor was ahead of her time in calling out the wrongdoings of the Catholic Church, Adrien Brody beat Chet Hanks by decades with his Jamaican patois stunt, and some people were just relentlessly annoying enough to warrant a ban.
Check out some people who were bold enough to embarrass themselves on live television and pay the price for it.
1
Louise Lasser
A host towards the end of the first season, she refused to be in any sketches that weren’t just her alone or alongside Chevy Chase.
2
The Replacements
The band got drunk before their performance and dropped their instruments.
3
Chevy Chase
The original star of SNL, he kept getting in fights with cast members and was generally annoying.
4
Charles Grodin
The actor deliberately went off script many times and was allegedly tart to the cast behind the scenes.
5
The Replacements
The band got drunk before their performance and dropped their instruments
6
Kanye West
A longtime musical guest, he was banned in 2018 after a political rant that ran past the scheduled runtime of the show.
7
Frank Zappa
The music legend kept going off-script and multiple times broke character and pointed out that he was reading off of cue cards
8
Milton Berle
The old tv star ad-libbed throughout the sketches, and then orchestrated an unplanned standing ovation for himself.
9
Robert Blake
Threw a script at a writer in 1982, which is kind of a guaranteed way to never get invited back. He later (probably) killed his wife.
10
Andy Kaufman
The audience literally voted him off the show in a live call-in stunt after he kept doing weird bits people weren’t into
12
Martin Lawrence
Made weird jokes about "feminine hygiene" in 1994
13
Sinéad O’Connor
Ripped up a picture of the Pope live on air, saying “Fight the real enemy!”
14
Adrien Brody
Banned for doing a Jamaican accent and wearing what he wore in the photo above
15
Elvis Costello
He began performing his song “Less Than Zero”, then abruptly stopped, saying “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there’s no reason to do this song here."“I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there’s no reason to do this song here." The ban was later lifted.
