Wednesday, July 1, 2026

“SNL” Drops by 800,000 Viewers Back Below 4 Million with Pregnant Keke Palmer and SZA — But Help is Coming

Share

★ Make Showbiz411 your Preferred Source on Google

On this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live, Keke Palmer– star of “Nope” — hosted and revealed she’s pregnant.

But the home audience didn’t know that would happen and a lot of them weren’t watching. Ratings fell to 3,.994 million, around 800,000 fewer than the last episode with David Chappelle spouting stupiid anti-semitic comments.

The music guest was SZA, who’s always good but didn’t sizzle with the audience.

Still, there was plenty of good stuff starting with the cold open featuring Kenan Thompson as a clueless Herschel Walker.

This Saturday, the numbers should jump pretty high as the hosts are Steve Martin and Martin Short. The musical guest is Brandi Carlile, and I’m sure Selena Gomez — who co-stars with the Martins in “Only Murders in the Building” — makes an appearance. They should do a parody of the show set in the “SNL” studios.

Live and learn.

Donate to Showbiz411.com

Showbiz411 is now in its 13th year of providing breaking and exclusive entertainment news. This is an independent site, unlike the many Hollywood trades that are owned by one company. To continue providing news that takes a fresh look at what's going on in movies, music, theater, etc, advertising is our basis. Reader donations would be greatly appreciated, too. They are just another facet of keeping fact based journalism alive.
Thank you


Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read more

In Other News