‘SNL’ Host Jerrod Carmichael Does Not Want to Talk About the Slap Either

“I’m not going to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. You can’t make me talk about it. But, but, but, I got a question, do you want to talk about it? Aren’t you sick of talking about it?”

Comedian Jerrod Carmichael, who self-identified during his excellent monologue as “the least famous person in Saturday Night Live history,” didn’t mention the names Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, or Chris Rock. He was over it, done, smothered by the “proxy arguments of hair, and Black men, and white people on Twitter.” This was a man on Friday who’d vowed never to talk about what happened, and why, and how, and what now, again. There was so much more in life to talk about, including his masterful new HBO special Rothaniel. “Then Lorne [Michaels] came into my dressing room, and he said, ‘The nation needs to heal.’” Carmichael’s eyes bugged. “And you want me to do that? The nation doesn’t even know me.”

The Oscars was six days ago, he marveled, shirtless and beautiful in his white suit, his gold necklace shining from his gleaming chest. We have been having this conversation forever, without much comfort or sense of a way forward.

We’ve all gone batty or stupid, victims of Covid or culture or Donald Trump or our complicated families. “Is My Brain Okay?” Kate McKinnon’s gameshow host Lisa Something asked in brassy sing song. Poor Derek, played by Carmichael, used to have a big important job, but now he just does mushrooms and has forgotten the word for wheelbarrow.