Comedian and actress Jenny Slate is known for projects like the Netflix film “Obvious Child,” her role as Mona-Lisa Saperstein on “Parks and Recreation” — and a brief, one season stint on “Saturday Night Live” which ended in her being fired after making headlines for saying f— on air.
But in a recent interview with InStyle, Slate clarified the real reason she believes she was fired from “SNL.”
“By the way, everyone always thinks I got fired for saying f—: I didn’t, that’s not why I got fired. I just didn’t belong there,” she said. “I didn’t do a good job, I didn’t click. I have no idea how [‘SNL’ creator] Lorne [Michaels] felt about me. All I know is, it didn’t work for me, and I got fired.”
Though her stint on “SNL” ended in 2010, Slate’s name was brought up in regards to the show again recently, after new recruit Shane Gillis was fired over using racial and homophobic slurs. When the video surfaced of Gillis using hateful language, many on Twitter who urged for him to be let go used Slate as an example of someone who had been fired for a lesser mistake in the past.
“I am a woman who has made so much of her own work, and I’ve had a variety of successes — some small, some personal, some public. I’m a New York Times best-selling children’s author, all of this stuff that is so intentional and worthy, but people often want to frame my success as an ascent from one failure that was the decision of some man who didn’t understand me 10 years ago,” Slate continued. “I just wonder, if I were a man, would people be so obsessed with the fact that I said a swear?”