Samantha Bee Rules and Lorne Michaels Sucks

"Imagine calling anyone strident when you have built a career out of elevating the loudest guy in the room," Bee said in response to Michaels' diss at her in his new biography. 

By Lauren Tousignant  |  February 14, 2025 | 10:24am
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Samantha Bee Rules and Lorne Michaels Sucks

On July 25, 2022, in what history will surely remember as one of the worst days of the 21st century, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee was canceled after seven seasons. And, since the day the idiot orange blob was re-elected, the only silver lining I’ve held onto is that maybe, maybe, his second term would spark a Full Frontal resurrection. My fingers continue to be crossed!

But one person who clearly won’t be trying to resurrect the Emmy-winning late-night satire news show that single-handedly got me through the blob’s first term is Lorne Michaels. Which is a real missed opportunity and, also, some real Canadian-on-Canadian hate.

In the new biography Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison, Lorne once specifically called out Samantha Bee as a persona that SNL wants to avoid. “It’s the hardest thing for me to explain to this generation that the show is nonpartisan,” Michaels reportedly said weeks before Trump was elected the first time, according to the book. “We have our biases, we have our people we like better than others, but you can’t be Samantha Bee.” Morrison adds that he “meant one-sided and strident.” Whatever. I’ve watched SNL live like three times in the past 15 years and I watched Full Frontal live every week and then would rewatch all the segments the next morning.

“It’s never exciting to be referenced in a negative way in someone else’s biography that’s gonna do really well,” Bee said in response to Michaels’ comment on The Daily Beast podcast on Thursday. “I mean, literally—imagine calling anyone strident when you have built a career out of elevating the loudest guy in the room.” Is it too late to get that quote printed on the biography’s book jacket?

“I get referenced in the book as being someone that [Michaels] does not want to emulate in any way,” Bee continued. “I concede the point. He’s right. I am one-sided. And I am strident, and proudly so.” Honestly, between letting Trump fucking host in 2015 and continuing to platform Dave Chappelle’s hateful and transphobic comedy, Michaels should be aiming to be a little more strident and one-sided.

Anyway, Lorne sucks and Bee rules. In lieu of watching all the SNL 50th Anniversary bullshit this weekend, I will be rewatching Full Frontal clips on YouTube 🙁 Like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one.

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