Woody Harrelson's delivered a strange, anti-vax 'SNL' monologue

Truly strange.
 By 
Tim Marcin
 on 
actor woody harrelson at snl
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Summarizing Woody Harrelson's opening monologue for this weekend's Saturday Night Live would be a near-impossible task. That's because the actor and this weekend's host really leaned into his stoner, kooky persona, telling a winding story that shifted direction countless times. Oh and somehow, it ended with an anti-vax joke that was greeted with crickets.

Long story short, the monologue centered on Harrelson smoking a joint and reading a script while sitting under a tree in New York City's Central Park. Along the way, Harrelson talks about politics, his manager Jeremy, his new movie, and a script he read. And weed, lots and lots about weed.

Anyway, the monologue all ends with Harrelson making a joke that centers on the idea that the COVID vaccine and locking down in 2020 was some plot cooked up by Big Pharma. Harrelson said he read a script for a movie.

"So the movie goes like this. The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes," Harrelson said, in a clear nod to vaccine conspiracy theories.

"And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over," he added. "I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day long."

Harrelson has before expressed some questionable thoughts about masks and 5G internet, so it's not necessarily a shocker that he'd spout anti-vax theories.

Topics SNL

close-up of man's face
Tim Marcin
Associate Editor, Culture

Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).


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