The Most Controversial SNL Musical Guests Of All Time

Even after some 50 years on television, it's still a really big deal for a musician to book the musical guest spot on an episode of "Saturday Night Live." One of the last outlets for live performance on broadcast television, singing and playing a couple of songs on an installment of the popular and influential late-night sketch comedy and variety show can bring on a lot of attention (and stimulate record sales and streaming numbers) for both up-and-comers and established acts. But because "Saturday Night Live" is primarily a satirical show that aims to speak truth to power, it can also make headlines. While some of the most controversial "SNL" skits of all time have brought bad press and criticism to the show, it's a weird fact of "Saturday Night Live" that a musical guest making national news with their performance is exceptionally rare. Things really have to go wrong to create a scandal, either by the musician acting out on purpose, making a political or artistic statement, or just because they're in no shape to perform.

Here are all the times when the musical guest spots on "SNL" weren't a mundane, vaguely pleasant part of the show, and when they overshadowed all the scripted comedy with some real-life drama.

Marijuana was made illegal in a messed up way, and in the 1990s, hip-hop group Cypress Hill fiercely celebrated and defended the substance, including in its hit "Insane in the Brain," which landed Cypress Hill a musical guest spot on "Saturday Night Live" in October 1993. In its first slot, Cypress Hill performed "Insane in the Brain" without incident. In its second slot, the collective planned to do "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That," then quit and destroy its gear on stage. "We were gonna smash our equipment like the Who. 'Cause we were doing that on tour," rapper B-Real told Vlad TV. And then, in the waning seconds of Cypress Hill's air time, DJ Muggs was going to light up a marijuana joint. 

The group was explicitly told not to do that. "It wasn't just the 'Saturday Night Live' people saying he couldn't smoke up on air. It was everyone: our record label, our management, our friends," member Sen Dog told the Village Voice. Instead, a defiant DJ Muggs opened the song with the joint rather than using it as a conclusion. "They said I couldn't light my joint, you know what I'm saying? But we ain't going out like that," DJ Muggs said before Cypress Hill performed "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That." The group later heard from NBC executives — not "SNL" producers — that it had been permanently banned from the show.

An April 1996 episode of "Saturday Night Live" offered a host and musical guest deeply and audaciously mismatched: Billionaire industrialist Steve Forbes, and outspoken far left revolutionary rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine. Forbes was on "SNL" to promote his campaign to secure the Republican party's nomination for president, while Rage Against the Machine was promoting its album "Evil Empire." The band was allowed to decorate the musical stage however it liked, and so its crew hung up upside-down American flags, a symbolic and highly political gesture which declared the U.S. a nation in distress. After a rehearsal, "SNL" personnel ordered the removal of the flags, because the sight of them could potentially upset sponsors.

The band got rid of the flags, but with 30 seconds to go until the band was set to perform "Bulls on Parade" on live national TV, its crew returned the upside-down flags to the stage. With just seconds to go, that crew and "SNL" stagehands got physical with each other over the philosophically loaded decorations. "We've informed our crew guys, 'defend the flags,'" guitarist Tom Morello told "People's Party with Talib Kweli." The band ultimately played on a flag-free stage. And as soon as they were done, an "SNL" producer told Rage's tour manager that the band had to leave the premises immediately — it wouldn't get to perform its standard second song.

In the late 1970s, "Saturday Night Live" was an edgy show, and just about the only place on TV to see daring punk and New Wave acts like Elvis Costello. On a December 1977 episode, Costello played "Watching the Detectives" in one segment, and when he returned to the stage for his second slot, he launched into "Less Than Zero." Then, abruptly, and dramatically, Costello waved his arms around and yelled to his band to stop. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here," Costello explained before he and his band tore through "Radio, Radio."

It was a momentarily startling and awkward bit of live television, but it was also an act of punk-flavored protest against the powers that be. "Radio, Radio" is a pointed criticism of corporate media and how it can be used to control the masses, and Lorne Michaels, producer of "SNL," which airs on the corporate media outlet NBC, had pleaded with Costello beforehand to not perform that song. Costello did it anyway, and with a little flash to boot, and got himself banned from "SNL" for more than a decade. He returned to "SNL" in 1989 as a musical guest, and at the "SNL" 25th anniversary show in 1999, he re-created the 1977 incident, interrupting the Beastie Boys' performance of "Sabotage" to do "Radio, Radio" with that band.

Minnesota-based indie rock sensations the Replacements booked "SNL" for a January 1986 episode. The band was known as much for its exceedingly drunken stage antics as it was for its fuzzy garage rock, and the group brought both to "SNL," although the former turned the latter into a televised disaster. An "SNL" rule at the time disallowed alcohol in the studio on show days, but the Replacements broke it by getting one of their technicians to sneak some in for them. 

And thus the band spent most of the evening drinking to excess and were too wasted to get through "Bastards of Young" without any problems. Paul Westerberg sang off key from time to time, and that was when he wasn't wandering away from the microphone in the middle of a verse. Bassist Tommy Stinson stumbled and staggered to such a degree that the cameras had a hard time capturing his image. Then, sensing guitarist Bob Stinson, already playing in a sloppy way, would miss his solo, Westerberg called out a cue of "Come on, f***er!" That F-word aired uncensored, as did a flash of Bob Stinson's rear end after he tore his pants when attempting a somersault. Reportedly banned by "SNL," the Replacements didn't play the show again, although a much calmer and sober Westerberg was the musical guest in a 1993 episode.

In contrast to Sinead O'Connor's first performance of her 1992 "SNL" episode – "Success Has Made a Failure of Our Home" with a sizable string section — her second found the singer onstage alone, delivering a stirring, voice-only interpretation of Bob Marley's anti-child abuse song "War."  At the end of the song, the singer stared into the camera, and on the line, "We have confidence in the victory of good over evil," she held up a photo of the then-head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, and tore it to bits. "Fight the real enemy," O'Connor implored, making it clear what institution and whose alleged misdeeds against children she was protesting with "War."

O'Connor had gone rogue. During a dress rehearsal, she'd used a picture of a child, made a statement about protection, and left it intact. The crew in the control booth was so stunned by the act during the broadcast that they wouldn't turn on the studio's "applause" sign, explaining the shocked silence following O'Connor's performance. In the days that followed, NBC fielded numerous complaints from upset viewers, and multiple Catholic organizations demanded an apology from NBC.

"It goes without saying that NBC does not condone what Ms. O'Connor did," said NBC vice president Curtis Block to the AP (via the Los Angeles Times). "We would never authorize something like that."

Kanye West was once a reliable and consistently interesting musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." He appeared on the show seven times and he always took it seriously, bringing in original sets and light designs such as in 2018, when he performed "I Love It" with Lil Pump in comically oversized water bottle costumes. At the time, West enjoyed such VIP status at "SNL" that on that episode, he was allowed a third musical performance slot at the end of the show, an honor rarely bestowed and only to the likes of luminaries like Bruce Springsteen and U2.

West performed "Ghost Town" with guests 070 Shake and Kid Cudi up until NBC cut the feed because the "SNL" time slot ended, and throughout the song, West wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat, associated with the Donald Trump presidential campaign. West also discussed his headwear-advertised political thoughts to the studio audience, and the assembled cast and crew of "SNL," off the air. West claimed that he was mocked around the "SNL" offices for his MAGA cap, and then he went on to trash the media and dismiss the allegations that President Trump had acted in a racist manner. In the studio, viewers booed West, while host Adam Driver and cast member Chris Redd walked away. Once an "SNL" stalwart, West hasn't been back to the show since.

It's unclear who really invented punk, the most agitated, angry, loud, and sloppy of rock sub-genres, but we do know that the LA punk scene coalesced in a memorable way in the late 1970s and very early 1980s because of bands like Fear. Original "Saturday Night Live" cast member turned movie star John Belushi was a huge fan of the group. After producers of his film "Neighbors" declined his contribution of a Fear song to its soundtrack, Belushi made amends by convincing "SNL" producer Dick Ebersol to let the band be the musical guest for the show's Halloween episode in October 1981.

Not content with merely playing some aggressive punk tunes in the studio, Fear staged a whole show, projecting images of bleeding jack-o'-lanterns and bringing in a mob of violent slam dancers. They knocked into each other as well as members of the audience, the crew, and the stage equipment. Reportedly leaving extensive and expensive property damage in its wake, members of Fear were under the impression that they had been banned for life from "SNL," in part because the show didn't air the band's performance in full. As the group's fans went wild, the feed cut to a pre-taped sketch starring cast member Eddie Murphy, which Ebersol had arranged to play in case of emergency.

Pop-rock singer Ashlee Simpson was one of the most marketed acts of 2004, with an MTV reality show tracking her first tour, making her first album, and trying to emerge from the shadow of her teen-pop-diva older sister, Jessica Simpson. Debut single "Pieces of Me" became a top-five hit, and Simpson was invited to perform that and another song on "Saturday Night Live" in October 2004.

Simpson hit the stage and presented "Pieces of Me," and when she returned for her second spot she intended to sing something else, but then Simpson's disembodied voice emerged from the studio's speakers, warbling "Pieces of Me" once again. It became instantly apparent that Simpson had been lip-syncing earlier, and the track she'd used had accidentally been replayed. Visibly embarrassed, Simpson danced an odd little jig, and the broadcast cut to an emergency commercial.

In the closing moments of the episode, host Jude Law stuck up for Simpson. "What can I say, live TV?" he quipped, which Simpson followed up with by blaming the snafu on her musicians, saying, "I feel so bad. My band started playing the wrong song, I didn't know what to do, so I did a little hoedown." Then Simpson's manager and father, Joe Simpson, told the media that his daughter had to lip-sync because an acid reflux attack had destroyed her voice. As late as 2024, the singer had changed her story again, citing vocal cord nodules as her voice-upsetting ailment.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band for a long time before it found mainstream commercial success. By the time it appeared on "Saturday Night Live" in February 1992, it was on its fourth guitarist, John Frusciante. Breakout singles "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away" were too happily embraced by the public for Frusciante's liking. "'We're too popular. I don't need to be at this level of success,'" singer Anthony Kiedis recalled Frusciante telling him in "Scar Tissue."

Frusciante rebelled with hostility to his fellow bandmates and a public act of sabotage. When the band played its second song, "Under the Bridge," on "SNL," Frusciante played abysmally, and to the best of Kiedis's powers of observation at the time, intentionally so. "I've since heard that John was on heroin during this show, but he might as well have been on another planet, because he started playing some s*** I'd never heard before," Kiedis wrote. "I had no idea what song he was playing or what key he was in." 

Frusciante claimed that he was just playing around with the song, as if the band was in a practice session. "Well, we weren't, we were on live TV in front of millions of people, and it was torture." Frusciante left the Red Hot Chili Peppers later in 1992.

Because NBC is a broadcast network, it's subject to policing by the Federal Communications Commission. No one should say a dirty word, for example, and precautions must be taken against such a thing happening during a live show like "SNL." NBC's censor can use a mute button to cut the network's audio feed when they think a musical guest utters a naughty expression, for example. During a 2005 "SNL" episode featuring metal band System of a Down, singer Serj Tankian said the F-word several times as part of the lyrics to "BYOB." All of those got muted, but when guitarist Daron Malakian improvised a "F*** yeah!" the censor missed it.

NBC didn't receive any complaints from "Saturday Night Live" viewers over the F-word usage, but an executive did issue a statement decrying System of a Down (and its managers) for the incident of what it called an "unsolicited expletive" (per Entertainment Weekly). While it was fully audible in the live, East Coast feed, that one F-word was cut out of the taped version that aired on the West Coast, and in reruns. System of a Down bassist told radio station KROQ in 2022 that his band was thusly banned from the show, although such sweeping dismissals of offending parties is a false fact about "SNL" you probably always thought was true.

In 2012, buzzed-about pop singer Lana Del Rey's "Saturday Night Live" debut became yet another embarrassing thing that happened on live TV. While she sang "Video Games," Del Rey missed a substantial amount of notes and barely moved from her spot center stage, except for some slow and dispassionate twirling. Amateur and professional critics piled on the vitriol. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter (via THR), actor Juliette Lewis likened Del Rey to "a 12 year old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform." "Lana Del Rey's next song is called 'Muted Television While People Brush Their Teeth And Prepare For Bed,'" said user @ranggrol. The AP's Mesfin Fekadu (via NBC's Today) called the event "strikingly horrific" and that Del Rey seemed "bored and detached." 

"SNL" itself even weighed in. Weeks after the debacle, cast member Kristen Wiig portrayed Del Rey in a "Weekend Update" segment. After entering the stage while wailing atonally and looking dazed, Wiig's Del Rey defended the performance, saying that viewers reacted as if she'd " clubbed a baby seal while singing the Taliban national anthem."

After "SNL," Del Rey never performed in front of a live TV studio audience again. "Maybe that's something else I'll grow into more," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. "Maybe now, even if I didn't feel confident, I would do it anyway. But there was a reason not to feel confident."