Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update turned its attention to the Met Gala this week, with Jeremy Culhane appearing as Tucker Carlson in a spoof that folded together fashion, music and screen culture in one pointed desk segment.
As reported by Billboard, the bit featured Culhane’s version of Carlson criticizing a string of high-profile subjects, including the Met Gala, Madonna, Heidi Klum, the Michael Jackson biopic and A$AP Rocky’s red carpet look. It was the kind of pop-culture pileup that Weekend Update often uses to turn a news-adjacent moment into a broader comedy target.
The segment arrived during an episode hosted by Matt Damon, with Noah Kahan serving as musical guest. That lineup placed the show squarely in entertainment-world territory even before Weekend Update moved into its culture-war parody lane.
Rather than treating the Met Gala as a fashion event alone, the sketch framed it as the kind of spectacle that can quickly become material for political-media satire. In that sense, A$AP Rocky’s red carpet appearance was not isolated as simply a style moment. It became part of a larger comic rant about celebrity, taste and the way public figures become instant talking points.
The inclusion of Madonna and Heidi Klum widened the sketch’s lens beyond one event or one outfit. Both names carry their own pop-cultural weight, and their placement in the segment helped turn the premise into a fast-moving tour through celebrity visibility. Weekend Update has long leaned on that kind of shorthand, where recognizable names become signals for larger conversations about fame, image and public reaction.
The Michael Jackson biopic also entered the segment’s orbit, bringing film into the mix alongside fashion and music. The source notes do not detail the specific joke, but its presence in the lineup underscores how the sketch moved across multiple entertainment lanes without settling into a single topic.
Culhane’s Carlson impression was the engine of the piece. By filtering the Met Gala and related celebrity moments through that exaggerated voice, the show positioned the rant itself as the joke. The humor came from the collision between red carpet glamour and a combative commentary style, a contrast that fits naturally into Weekend Update’s desk-driven format.
For music audiences, the segment’s most immediate hook may have been the cluster of artist-adjacent references. Madonna remains one of pop’s most recognizable figures, the Michael Jackson biopic continues to sit within the music-film conversation, and A$AP Rocky’s appearance at a major fashion event tied hip-hop style directly to the night’s satire.
Noah Kahan’s role as musical guest also gave the episode a clear music connection beyond the sketch. While Weekend Update handled the comedy side of the evening, the booking placed a contemporary artist within the same broadcast that was riffing on some of the biggest names and images circulating through entertainment media.
The result was a compact but loaded Weekend Update moment: a Carlson parody aimed at the Met Gala, celebrity fashion, legacy pop figures and a major music biopic, all within an episode already anchored by Damon and Kahan. It was less a simple joke about one red carpet and more a snapshot of how quickly music, fashion and film can become part of the same televised punchline.
