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‘He’s been mad at me for that’: Kenan Thompson reacts to Samuel L Jackson saying the SNL star got him banned from the show

Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson has explained why Samuel L Jackson believes he got him banned from the show.

The pair appeared in a sketch together on the NBC series 10 years ago. Pulp Fiction actor Jackson brought it up during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in March, saying: “Kenan got me banned from Saturday Night Live.

“He didn’t cut me off soon enough, and I said the forbidden word [f***] on television. It was like, ‘Ah! He was supposed to cut me off.’”

Speaking on The Tonight Show on Thursday (19 May), where host Jimmy Fallon brought up Jackson’s comments, Thompson explained that the cue card had only the letter “F” on it. He said: “[Jackson] dropped the F-bomb on the show, but he says I was supposed to cut him off before that.

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“We kinda expect the F-word out of Sam Jackson, so no harm done. Then he doubled down and said it again, and I was like, ‘Yo, my man we got to pay for those.’”

Thompson added: “He’s been mad at me for that, so my bad, bro. I didn’t think he was gonna do it like that. Come on in whenever you want. It’s Sam Jackson – who doesn’t want Sam Jackson on the show?”

Jackson has hosted SNL once, in 1998, and his last appearance on it was the guest appearance in question, in 2012.

The offending ‘SNL’ sketch (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via)
The offending ‘SNL’ sketch (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via)

The star, who was given an honorary Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, is not actually forbidden from appearing on the series. Jackson has previously said that SNL boss Lorne Michaels assured the actor he was not banned.

Earlier this year Jackson said that he would love to return as Mace Windu in his own Star Wars spin-off. Jackson, who appeared in all three films in the prequel trilogy, revealed to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he had even made the plea to The Mandalorian director Bryce Dallas Howard.

It was rumoured back in 2020 that Jackson would appear in a prequel about Windu on Disney Plus. Though he has always been open about wanting to return to the Star Wars universe, there has been little said about such a project until Jackson’s recent comments.