The latest episode of Saturday Night Live drew laughter with a joke about the widely reported Cornell sexual-assault lawsuit—one that placed co-host Colin Jost at the center of the punchline.
A woman identified as Jane Doe in court filings sued Cornell University students last month, alleging that seven members of the Ivy League community sexually assaulted her. The case has since been widely referred to as the “Cornell seven” lawsuit.
According to the complaint, Doe said she was given alcohol, urged to use ketamine and subjected to repeated sexual assaults over several hours at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024.
The allegations became the subject of a recent SNL “Weekend Update” segment, the show’s news parody hosted by Michael Che and Colin Jost.
“One of the major stories in the news this week, of course, is the sexual-assault case at Cornell,” Che said. “Obviously, we don’t want to make light of what happened.”
He then shifted to the issue of men confronting the behavior of other men. “We all have that one friend who seems like a nice guy,” Che said, just as the camera turned toward Jost, who was staring down at his desk while holding a pencil.
As the studio audience erupted, Jost looked up and put on a puzzled expression, appearing to pretend that he did not understand why the camera had focused on him.
“But you know they’re definitely not,” Che added, laughing along with the crowd.
Saturday Night Live referenced the much-discussed “Cornell seven” lawsuit during its latest “Weekend Update” segment.
Michael Che said, “We all have that one friend who seems like a nice guy,” while the camera showed Colin Jost looking down and acting oblivious.
A woman has accused seven Cornell students of gang rape in a lawsuit that has become known as the “Cornell seven” case. Students are pictured on the university’s campus.
Che continued by suggesting that the person in question could be someone close to you—or even a colleague—as the broadcast cut back to Jost.
“Maybe you can’t prove anything, but you can look at him and tell that those weird, privileged Ivy League types always have something messed up going on,” Che said, prompting another switch between the two hosts.
He then directly addressed Jost: “Colin, did you want to add anything?”
“What?” Jost replied with a grin. “No, stop cutting to me,” he said as the audience continued reacting.
“All right, don’t want to help women. Cool,” Che responded sarcastically.
The exchange landed strongly in the studio, with viewers laughing each time the camera returned to Jost.
Reaction online was considerably more mixed. Some viewers praised the segment as a sharp and measured joke, while others criticized the decision to make light of allegations involving sexual violence.
“I didn’t know where Che was going with the Cornell joke, but I’ll admit I chuckled a little. He never misses an opportunity to take a shot at Colin,” one YouTube commenter wrote.
Jost looked confused after the audience broke into laughter.
Jost looked at the camera as Che continued talking about the case and implying that Jost was a ‘weird privileged Ivy League type’ with ‘some messed up stuff going on’
‘“……wh…what? Stop cutting to me!” I genuinely have no idea if this was rehearsed or not, but dammit I laughed!’ another user on YouTube said.
‘Weekend Update remains the best part of SNL. Michael and Colin continue to be a great duo. “Stop cutting to me”,’ a third YouTube commenter chimed in.
Much of the negative reaction was posted on X, where one user tweeted: ‘I think the reason this was so upsetting is the fact that they have handled serious issues in a non offensive way before…
‘But two men joking about a horrific rape case is just not funny! At all!’
Another user tweeted: ‘I don’t think Michael wrote that failed Cornell joke.’
‘SNL sucks,’ a third user simply said in response to a tweet about the SNL clip.
