Saturday Night Live took a break from politics in its cold open, taking on the week's most talked about TV moment: Gayle King's interview with a defiant R. Kelly. King and Kelly were played by Leslie Jones and Kenan Thompson.
Said Thompson's Kelly, who said he preferred to be introduced as “victim,” when asked why he was talking to the media while facing charges he sexually abused underage girls: “My lawyer was telling me no, but my ego — my ego was telling me yes.”
Thompson's Kelly intertwined the interview with takes on the singer's music, including “Trapped in the Closet”.
“It's 10 o'clock in the morning and I'm talking to Oprah's friend. If I can just get through this everybody's going to love me again.”
But the cold open wasn't the only time Kelly got a mention.
During Weekend Update, Pete Davidson drew boos and then laughs when he compared Kelly to the Catholic Church, asking, “If you support the Catholic church, isn't that the same thing as being an R. Kelly fan? I don't really see the difference, only one's music is significantly better.”
In related news, Kelly walked out of Cook County Jail three days after he was jailed again for failing to pay child support.
The Chicago Tribune reports: ‘A copy of the bond slip did not show who posted the $161,663 owed by Kelly or the individual's relationship to him. Smith said the individual wished to remain anonymous. Less than two weeks earlier, Kelly, 52, spent another three days in the jail complex on Chicago's Southwest Side after bombshell indictments on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.'
