Colin Jost narrowly avoided losing his “award-winning” hair live on air during Saturday Night Live’s season 51 finale.
The hair-mergency was the culmination of the latest “Weekend Update Joke Swap” segment on Saturday, May 16, where Jost, 43, and his cohost Michael Che read offensive jokes they wrote for each other. After brutal jokes about Michael Jackson and Michael B. Jordan‘s Oscar win, Jost had to read a zinger that Che wrote about Kanye West.
“Ye has released a new album called Bully,” Jost began. “Please try to separate the art from the artist. Remember, Ye can make awful music and still be right about Hitler.”
(In January, West, 48, publicly apologized for making antisemitic comments in the past, insisting that he is “not a Nazi or an antisemite.”)
As the SNL studio audience cringed, Jost acknowledged that his joke was “offensive to everyone” before reading a mea culpa penned by Che.
“To apologize, I’d like to sacrifice the most important thing in my life: my beautiful, award-winning, world-famous hair,” Jost said. “That’s right, I’m shaving it off! Send in the barber.”
A shocked Jost was joined on stage by a barber, who promptly put a smock over the comedian’s shoulders and whipped out a razor.
“Jerome, make me un-pretty,” Jost wearily read from the teleprompter.
Just before the barber started shaving his head, Che, 42, intervened to ask whether his comedy partner would actually go through with the stunt.
“Man, you are the greatest comedian of all time,” Che told Jost as they both chuckled. “No, don’t do it!”
“I was so scared,” Jost admitted.
While Jost got away unscathed this time, the “Joke Swap” has had some major consequences for him in the past. In December 2024, SNL cameras caught Jost’s wife Scarlett Johansson’s disgusted reaction to a vulgar joke Che wrote about her.
“Costco has removed the roast beef sandwich from its menu. I’ve been eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid,” a horrified Jost read.
The Marvel star admitted to InStyle in March 2025 that she was completely caught off guard by the crudity of Che’s one-liner.
“It was so vulgar. I just can’t believe that they went there,” she admitted. “I was like — it was so gross. It was really gross. And, like, old-school gross.”
The couple got their revenge during SNL’s season 50 finale when they teamed up to write embarrassing jokes for Che to read.
“The fact is, I was just lashing out because I’m jealous,” a smirking Che told Jost and Johansson, 41. “I’ve never ever seen a human vagina. And notice I said ‘human’ because I once spent the summer on a farm.”
Saturday Night Live returns with season 52 on NBC this fall.
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