Obsession star Inde Navarette made her Saturday Night Live debut with a not-so-subtle dig at the last host, Shane Gillis, and his controversial monologue remarks about women’s fitness apparel.
“I loved making Obsession, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m gonna be in a Marvel movie,” Navarette, 25, began her Saturday, October 31, monologue, referring to her recent casting as Rogue in the new X-Men reboot. “I know it’s really important for Marvel that you get really fit, so I’ve been working out a lot.”
She continued, “So, every morning I put on my little whore outfit and I hit the gym.”
Navarette’s SNL gig directly follows Gillis, 38, who hosted an episode of the long-running hit variety show earlier in October. In his monologue, he lamented about women’s workout gear.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now? Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it],” the comedian complained at the time. “Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look.”
Gillis’ comments drew instant backlash.
“Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There’s a difference there,” Schitt’s Creek alum Dan Levy responded to Gillis in a social media video. “I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television. To be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it’s complacency that has created the environment [in] which women are sexually assaulted, and it’s a conversation as opposed to a crime.”
Levy, 43, further thought more men should defend women instead of tearing apart their appearances.
“This is not a women’s issue. This is an everybody issue, because the more that men objectify women in the media, the more that other men see them as objects and treat them as objects,” Levy concluded. “They are not objects. They are superior human beings to men, OK? And I’m sorry if this gets me in trouble with the internet, but f***.”
Shane Gillis. Will Heath/NBC
Gillis has not addressed the backlash to his controversial SNL comments, while Navarette refused to let the drama sully her big Studio 8H moment.
“I’m so excited to be here,” she gushed in her monologue. “We’ve got a great show tonight!”
Saturday Night Live airs on NBC Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.