Comedian Nikki Glaser came in hot with her monologue on Saturday Night Live, making jokes about sex trafficking, rape, and child molestation.
The first-time host joked about having “resting Ghislaine face,” and said her Gen Z female friends are afraid of human trafficking.
“That was like, not a fear of mine ever in my twenties. In my twenties I just feared like, good old-fashioned rape, you know?” Glaser joked.
Although the material will have come as no surprise to fans of Glaser’s edgy material on her Comedy Central roast appearances over the years, some viewers found the jokes a step too far, especially since Glaser’s first sketch post-monologue focused on incest.
As one X user wrote, “The incest sketch on tonight’s snl might have been a tad bit funny if it hadn’t been immediately preceded by nikki glaser jokingly contemplating p*dophilia in her opening monologue.”
Perhaps Glaser’s most controversial joke was her musings on potentially being a pedophile.
“How do you become a pedophile?“ she asked. ”You don’t get to choose what you’re into, dude. What if it’s one of those things you don’t know you like till you get in there and you’re like, ‘Well, this is my thing.’“
The joke sparked one viewer to post, “@nbcsnl I have a sense of humor but this monologue was disgusting! Did you guys even watch it before reposting it ???”
Another viewer listed all the taboos Glaser joked about, from “domestic violence” to “racism,” ending the post by telling the comedian to “do better.”
“Nikki Glaser (of all people) absolutely bombed her #SNL monologue,” wrote another X user. “It was CRINGE.”
“Nikki Glaser monologue was horrible,” wrote another viewer. “There’s no way she should be invited back to SNL. This could be one of the most controversial monologues. I’m a fan of SNL in general, but not this. “Jokes” about child abuse are not funny. @nbcsnl"
Glaser is well-known for her raunchy, controversial material. After hosting the 2025 Golden Globes, Glaser revealed in a Howard Stern interview that she had had to cut some jokes about Diddy, Luigi Mangione, and pedophilia within the Catholic Church.
That last bit included her saying the movie Conclave, about cardinals choosing a new pope would “touch you so much that the church will have to move it to another theater,” adding, "Conclave is rated PG, bring the kids. They’ll love it. The Catholic Church will love it. Hot tip, you don’t need ID to get into the Conclave afterparty.”
In a May 2024 interview with the Daily Beast’s Last Laugh podcast, Glaser revealed that she found pedophilia jokes particularly compelling.
“I really just am fascinated by pedophiles, because it’s the sickest thing I can imagine,” Glaser said.
She clarified that she’d feel “horrible” if “any person that was molested left my show being like, ‘she was defending pedophiles,’ which is not what I’m doing.”
Glaser added of people who leave her shows due to her pedophilia material, “I wish they wouldn’t have left because then they would have gotten to a whole bit where I turn that around and prove that it’s horrifying and it’s the worst thing ever.”
“And if you survive it,” Glaser said, “you’re one of the strongest people that I can imagine.”
For more, listen to Nikki Glaser on The Last Laugh podcast.
