Megyn Kelly rips Tom Hanks for ‘racist’ MAGA skit on 'SNL'
'Shame on him,' conservative talk show host said of two-time Oscar winner's portrayal of Trump voter
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Megyn Kelly has added her voice to the chorus of viewers booing Tom Hanks for his participation in a controversial Saturday Night Live skit during the show’s 50th anniversary celebration Sunday night.
Hanks came under fire on social media for his mocking portrayal of a Donald Trump supporter during a special marking the show’s 50 years on the air.
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Megyn Kelly rips Tom Hanks for ‘racist’ MAGA skit on 'SNL' Back to video
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Appearing in a Black Jeopardy sketch, Hanks’ character Doug, a caricature he played in an episode nearly a decade ago before Trump was first elected president in 2016, appeared on a parody game show wearing a red Make America Great Again cap and refused to shake Kenan Thompson’s hand, who played the host Darnell Hayes.
“Welcome to Black Jeopardy, the only Jeopardy where every single viewer fully understood Kendrick (Lamar’s) halftime performance,” Thompson said, referring to the rapper’s show at the Super Bowl.
Towards the end of the spoof, which also featured Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, Hanks’ Doug showed up and said, “I heard a fella could win some money here.” After buzzing in with a correct answer, Doug later added, “If more folks went to church, we wouldn’t be in this mess we’re in now.”
When Darnell tried to shake his hand, Doug backed away and said, “Don’t like that,” before reluctantly agreeing to clasp hands with Darnell.
“Maybe I’ll start a show for you to come on and we’ll call it White Jeopardy,” Doug quipped.
The act quickly went viral, with former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aide Link Lauren calling SNL “an unfunny show for snobbish liberal elites” in a post to X.
Former Fox News host Kelly also weighed during a segment on her Megyn Kelly Show, calling Hanks’ demeaning portrayal of a Trump supporter a slight against the moviegoers who turned him into one of Hollywood’s biggest film stars.
“I’m sure Tom Hanks is worth a billion dollars,” Kelly said. “And you know who got it for him? All of us… who went to see Forrest Gump, Big, and all the fun Tom Hanks movies and never once thought that he was judging them as stupid, rural, worth-nothing racists.”
Kelly went on to note that throughout his career, Hanks has sought out less controversial roles that wouldn’t hurt him at the box office.
“It was shocking to see somebody who tries so carefully not to be too divisive in his choices to come right out and suggest he thinks Trump supporters are racists. Shame on him,” she added.
Kelly’s guests, America This Week hosts Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, also wondered why Hanks would have resurrected the character after Trump’s decisive re-election victory last November.
“I didn’t know that Tom Hanks would stoop to this kind of thing,” Kirn said. “It is terrible writing, it was a terrible skit, and he was the big loser. I see people all over the social media going, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be watching him again anytime soon.’”
“It is not funny because it is just a stereotype,” Taibbi added.
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The hosts of The View were also divided over Hanks’ decision to revive Doug.
“The fact remains that they’re making anyone who voted for Trump look like a racist, and that’s why they’re mad. I personally would never do that, because I don’t believe that any group is one thing,” Joy Behar said on Tuesday’s episode.
But Behar’s colleague, former Trump administration official Alyssa Farah Griffin, called the anger from Trump supporters “a little overblown.”
Elsewhere, former View co-host Meghan McCain hit out at the two-time Oscar winner on social media, writing, “Tom Hanks always wants to pretend he’s the likable everyman, but he’s as hate mongering of regular Americans as any host on MSNBC. Good luck becoming less and less culturally relevant by the second, bro.”
In Vulture’s oral history of the sketch back in 2018, Thompson reflected on the origin of the segment and said the decision to have Doug not want to shake Darnell’s hand — a move the character also pulled in 2016 — was a last-minute switch by Hanks.
“My host character reaching his hand out to somebody who might unnecessarily be afraid of him — I’ve experienced things like that, so when he did it, I laughed super-hard in my mind but played it off,” Thompson told Vulture in 2018. “It was the most natural ad-lib I’ve ever done.”
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