SNL Imagines Mel Gibson, J.K. Rowling, Ye Claiming Tourette’s in Cut-for-Time Sketch

Saturday Night Live riffed on one of the week’s most uncomfortable headlines with a cut-at-dress sketch imagining a world in which disgraced celebrities blame their past behavior on Tourette’s syndrome.

The sketch, penned by written by Colin Jost and Carl Tart, and framed as a mock public service announcement, was inspired by the controversy at last weekend’s British Academy Film Awards, where Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson involuntarily shouted a racial slur during the ceremony. The remark controversially made it into the BBC’s tape-delayed broadcast.

In SNL’s send-up, the show imagines a parade of public figures using the occasion to retroactively claim Tourette’s as an explanation for their own past misdeeds.

Andrew Dismukes opens the sketch as Mel Gibson. “As I probably should have pointed out decades ago,” he says, “I too suffer from Tourette’s, which explains a lot of the things I’ve said or yelled through the years.”

Sarah Sherman appears as former Real Housewives of New York personality Jill Zarin, who attributes a recent inflammatory video rant to “severe long-winded monologue-style Tourette’s—a condition that affects nine out of 10 people on Long Island.”

Host Connor Storrie plays Armie Hammer, deadpanning, “Not many people know this, but one of the most common side effects of Tourette’s is cannibalism”—a nod to the actor’s widely reported direct-message scandal.

Ashley Padilla’s J.K. Rowling insists that Tourette’s “isn’t just blurting out an offensive word. It can be a years-long obsession with something like trans rights,” before adding that her remarks were “all the Tourette’s fault.”

Kenan Thompson reprises his impression of Bill Cosby, who claims to suffer from “Drink Tourette’s,” while Kanye West—played by Kam Patterson—declares he’s “got like three different types of Tourette’s.”

SNL’s resident provocateur Michael Che even makes an appearance, noting, “Tourette’s makes us do horrible things to the white guy we work with.”

The sketch closes with a faux sponsor tag: “Brought to you by the National Workforce of Rethinking Disabilities—or N.W.O.R.D.”

In real life, Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological disorder marked by involuntary motor and vocal tics. Medical professionals stress that the condition is often misrepresented in popular culture, and that the involuntary use of slurs or obscene language—known as coprolalia—occurs in only a minority of cases.

Watch the full sketch below: