‘No Idea I Was on Camera’: Seth Meyers on Odd SNL50 Moment

Seth Meyers is clearing up a moment from SNL‘s 50th anniversary special that had some eagle-eyed viewers scratching their heads.

The Late Night with Seth Meyers host was briefly caught on camera covering his mouth and mouthing something during SNL50: The Anniversary Special. On this week’s Corrections, he reveals what (and why) he seemed to be muttering to himself—and it all had to do with a lost voice.

The moment came during the special’s scripted audience Q&A segment led by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. As musician Keith Richards stands up from his seat and asks if anyone has seen a scarf he left in the studio in the ‘80s, a seemingly concerned Meyers is visible among the audience members saying something inaudible.

Moments later, Meyers had his own line in the bit. As it turns out, the cameras caught him practicing.

“I’d lost my voice,” Meyers explained on Corrections, revealing that he had considered telling Lorne Michaels to write him out of the show. “It was one of those lost voices where the first thing you said was always the hardest, and then your voice would warm up a little bit.”

After someone asked Meyers what the odd on-screen moment was all about, the host went back to the tape. “What I’m doing, I realized, is I’m saying my line into my hand,” he explained. “The way you would try to prime a lawn mower.”

Meyers wound up delivering his line—“It kinda feels like this whole question-and-answer thing is just a way for you guys to give some airtime to celebrities who aren’t in other parts of the show”—clearly, albeit raspy. But that didn’t stop him from veering into self-deprecation about the mishap on Corrections.

“By the way, I’ve been in television for twenty years,” Meyers added. “I’m so f*cking bad at it that I have no idea I’m on camera!”