White Lotus actor Walton Goggins is set to host Saturday Night Live for the first time on May 10, NBC confirmed on Thursday.
He’ll be joined by musical guest Arcade Fire as the long-running sketch show nears the end of its 50th season.
The announcement follows backlash over a recent SNL sketch that mocked Goggins’ White Lotus co-star Aimee Lou Wood.
The parody aired on April 12, with comedian Sarah Sherman impersonating Wood’s character Chelsea - complete with exaggerated fake teeth and a caricatured British accent.
The skit imagined various political figures, including the Trump family, on holiday at the fictional White Lotus resort. Goggins’ character Rick was recast as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who launched into a bizarre monologue about removing “all the fluoride out of the water.”
“Fluoride? What’s that?” Sherman’s version of Chelsea said in the sketch.
While meant to be a satire, many viewers - and Wood, 31, herself - felt the portrayal crossed a line.
Taking to her Instagram Stories, she wrote: “I did find the ‘SNL’ thing mean and unfunny xo. (Felt righteous, might delete later).”
“Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago.
“Yes, take the p**s for sure – that’s what the show is about – but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”
She went on to clarify that she’s no stranger to parody and is happy to be mocked when the humour is smart: “I am not thin-skinned. I actually love being taken the p**s out of when it’s clever and in good spirits. But the joke was about fluoride. I have big gap teeth, not bad teeth.
“I don’t mind caricature – I understand that’s what SNL is. But the rest of the skit was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on… Okay, end of.”
Goggins, however, had a very different reaction. He called the sketch “smashing,” further fueling speculation of tension between the two.
Fans have noted that the pair, who played on-screen love interests, don’t follow each other on Instagram, and Goggins also left Wood out of a recent social media tribute to the White Lotus cast.
The actor, 53, will be the penultimate host of SNL's milestone season. Scarlett Johansson and Bad Bunny are set to close out the season with the May 17 finale.
