Bowen Yang Addresses Controversy Over Chappell Roan SNL Sketch

By now we’re all familiar with Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise and her extreme distaste for the intrusions into privacy that go along with fame. In the past week, that saga has involved a lot of willful misunderstanding of Roan’s reluctant endorsement of Kamala Harris, as well as Roan’s decision to drop off the All Things Go festival in New York and DC. Over the weekend, Bowen Yang — who interviewed Roan for Interview this year — wrapped Roan’s situation in with another recent viral sensation.

On Weekend Update, Yang appeared in character as Moo Deng, the pygmy hippo from Thailand that has been all over the internet lately. As Moo Deng, he gave a monologue about respecting boundaries, one that sounded an awful lot like Roan’s recent video messages. During the bit, he and Weekend Update host Colin Jost made sure to explicitly draw a parallel between Moo Deng and Roan, which gave Yang an opportunity to express his support for her and clarify that he was not making fun of her. It was one of the funniest SNL sequences in recent memory — the recurring gag in which Moo Deng suddenly demanded to drink from a hose was stupid-genius — but apparently some viewers lacked basic comprehension skills and interpreted it as a mockery of Roan.

On his Instagram story (yes, his account is @fayedunaway), Yang posted a screengrab of the Variety headline “‘SNL’ Mocks Chappell Roan as Bowen Yang’s Moo Deng Takes On Crazy Fans.” He added his own commentary disputing the idea that he was poking fun at Roan:

oh geeez. “mocks”??? if my personal stance and the piece aren’t perfectly clear in terms of supporting her then there it is i guess. everything she has ever asked for has been reasonable and even then we can connect it to another story about boundaries or whatever. needing the hose rn…

Below, revisit the sketch and check out Yang’s post.