Out comedian Jerrod Carmichael hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, and in his opening monologue, he spoke about coming out publicly in his HBO special released only a few days earlier.
The crowd cheered when he brought up coming out, to which he replied that excitement was a “nice and expected response” to someone being gay in New York.
“Honestly, if you’re gay in New York, you get to host Saturday Night Live – this is the gayest thing you could possibly do,” he joked. “I came out right onto the stage. We’re basically in an Andy Warhol fever dream right now.”
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He also claimed SNL creator Lorne Michaels told him to talk about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars because “the nation needs to heal.”
“Heal the nation?” he retorted. “I’ve been gay for like 48 hours. There’s so much gay stuff I’ve got to do… I’ve got so many homophobic cousins. I can’t even heal my family. I’m gonna heal the nation?”
In his special, called Rothaniel, Carmichael also comes out to his live audience to thunderous applause. He told them how he resisted coming out for his entire life.
“At many points, I thought I’d rather die than confront the truth of that, to actually say it to people. Because I know it changes some people’s perceptions of me. I can’t control that.”
He also acknowledged that he feels “freer,” despite his coming out affecting his relationships with his religious mother.
But on SNL, Carmichael at least appeared comfortable in his own skin, joking about how being gay in New York means “you can ride the bus for free, and people just give you pizza.”
