Ayo Edebiri is one of our brightest young stars, which is why she was one of the hosts for SNL Season 49. It was an honor to host the iconic sketch show, but it also uncovered a pretty awkward situation between her and musical guest Jennifer Lopez. Apparently, Edebiri made some disparaging jokes on a podcast a few years back about the “Let’s Get Loud” singer, a situation that The Bear star deeply regrets.
Edebiri is the recent cover star of Vanity Fair, in which she was interviewed about her newfound success and the upcoming and highly anticipated third season of The Bear. The actress was also asked about her hosting stint on SNL and the awkward interaction with Lopez that it created. She addressed her past comments, saying that the situation it caused felt silly considering her position as an up-and-coming comedic actress, and JLo’s status as a superstar. The Emmy-winner said of their “beef”:
That would be like Mr. Bean and Mick Jagger beefing and I’m obviously Mr. Bean. She’s J.Lo! She was very chill and nice about it.
The comment in question was made by Edebiri in 2020 on the Scam Goddess podcast, where she said that Lopez’s career was a scam and that she doesn’t actually sing her own music. Once it was revealed that she and Lopez would be headlining SNL together, the comments quickly resurfaced.
The Bottoms star took matters into her own hands right away, and she apologized to the Hustlers actress. SNL even found a way to acknowledge the scam comments in one of the sketches, having Edebiri say a line warning others to be careful what they say on podcasts.
After receiving the apology, JLo was, to her credit, gracious about the situation. She also said she wasn’t affected by the comments, and detailed how terrible Edebiri felt about her words. It seems like the beef has been squashed, and there isn’t any bad blood between them either.
Lopez has been in the hot seat herself, and famously made some disparaging comments about other actresses early on in her career. So, it makes sense that she would give the young star grace, especially considering the Theater Camp actress was so apologetic.
Even though this whole debacle seems to be done with, it does feel like a lesson to up-and-coming artists in Hollywood. The 28-year-old made the comments before The Bear took off and she was launched to stardom, and clearly she didn’t think that it would matter much in the long run.
Tina Fey even referenced the situation when warning Bowen Yang to be careful who he talks about on his podcast, considering Yang is also getting more and more famous. It’s a tough line to walk, especially in the social media age when everything can resurface, but I think Edebiri definitely learned her lesson.
You can check out Ayo Edebiri in The Bear with a Hulu subscription when it returns for Season 3 on June 27th. For more information on other exciting series returning to the small screen this year, make sure to consult our 2024 TV schedule.