You’re not in the movies; you’re not on TV; nobody wants to hear any album you try to record.
So how else can you tell the world you are just as big a star as anybody who conquers any of those other areas of public adulation?
How about becoming the biggest star in the history of the Olympics? That’s certainly not bad. And Simone Biles is now definitely in the argument for that title.
Which means, surely, the invitation to host Saturday Night Live is already in the mail. Or the email. Or at least on a card somewhere on a cork board in Lorne Michaels’ summer office in the Hamptons.
The 50th season of SNL is about to commence, starting in September. How can what Simone has done in Paris—and before that, during the most impressive career in the history of women’s gymnastics—escape the unerring eye for the cultural icon, for the darling of the zeitgeist, that has been the signature of Michaels’ long run as the maestro of television’s longest-running entertainment franchise?
Who better to recognize a GOAT than another GOAT?
OK, let’s address the argument: Is Simone Biles as big an Olympic star as Michael Phelps, who hosted SNL‘s Season 34 premiere on September 13, 2008?
Not if your standard is pure hardware. Phelps has an unmatched Olympic metallic collection, 28 in total. Biles isn’t even in the area code with eight as of Tuesday, when she cashed in another gold by leading the U.S. women to the Olympic team title. (She’ll get cracks at several more in the individual competition.)
But you don’t put on a show for 50 years without knowing what a mega-star looks like. All respect to Phelps, who was a competitor without peer in the pool. But Michael didn’t perform in high-fashion leotards, wearing stylist-perfected make-up, and, most crucially, in the highest of visibility on a klieg-lighted floor, beam, vault, and pair of bars.
Most of Phelps’ amazing work was done partly, or largely, submerged.
You don’t put baby in a corner.
Nor in three meters of water.
Of course, even with all the submersion, Phelps did get his invite to host SNL in 2008 after he shattered every swimming record by winning eight gold medals. By then he was only barely halfway past his ultimate medal total of 28.
(At least Phelps got to host. All another Olympics GOAT, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, got in 2012 was a cameo in a “The Californians” sketch—where he managed a pretty fair Valley accent.)
What Simone has over the others, including other technical Olympians who have hosted, like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Charles Barkley (four times), is making her fame on what amounts to Broadway in the Summer Olympics. No other competition has the flash, the drama, or the ratings of women’s gymnastics.
For the purposes of show biz, it is not a question of who is the biggest winner in the history of the Olympics, but who is the biggest star.
In the 1970s, nobody had any idea who Nadia Comăneci was until she started racking up perfect 10s on the bars. After that happened in primetime on American television not only did she become an international star, she took the entire sport of women’s gymnastics with her. They even renamed the theme music from The Young and the Restless soap opera “Nadia’s Theme” and it became a Top Ten single in 1976, after she posted her passel of 10s.
Which brings up another factor certain to make its way to the front of an impresario’s mind. In an era when big audiences on television are like sales of vinyl records—an occasionally pleasant little throwback to a lost era—the Paris Olympics are pulling in people like the good old days of primetime hits. Monday’s primetime audience of 31 million was up 77 percent from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
And the featured event that night was men’s gymnastics, which is a bit like softball versus baseball in terms of popular appeal. There is a good chance the women’s night will top that.
Which will make Simone Biles the top NBC TV star in years and the top TV star of the current year (if you don’t count Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl).
Surely if SNL can somehow find space on its stage for hosts from decidedly unstarry arenas like politics (Steve Forbes?) and even business (Elon Musk? Bold choice, but how is it looking now?) it can honor a real star like Simone Biles.
Can she pull it off? How much more of a challenge could it be to sit down with Lisa from Temecula than to land on bare feet backwards on a 4-foot wide beam?
When you’re a star you’re a star.
Expect the announcement the night of the closing ceremony.
