RuPaul and Houston Texans Star JJ Watt to Make Their ‘SNL’ Hosting Debuts in February

Justin Bieber will join the RuPaul-hosted episode as the musical guest

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Houston Texans star J.J. Watt and RuPaul will make their respective hosting debuts for “Saturday Night Live” in February, NBC announced on Tuesday.

Watt will host the Feb. 1 episode, airing one night before Super Bowl LIV, while RuPaul will host the following week’s episode on Feb. 8. Luke Combs will be the musical guest on Feb. 1, with Justin Bieber providing the music for the Feb. 8 episode. It will be Combs’ first appearance and the third for Bieber. Adam Driver was previously announced to host the first “SNL” episode of 2020 on Jan. 25, with musical guest Halsey. For Driver, it will be his third time hosting, while Halsey will also be making her third appearance.

They will have a tough act to follow.

With Eddie Murphy back for the first time in 35 years and pop star Lizzo as the musical guest, the last “SNL” episode of 2019 scored 16.293 million total viewers in “Live + 7 Day” data from the ratings currency company. That’s an increase of 6.308 million viewers over a week’s worth of catchup, which is mostly attributed to DVR playback.

The Dec. 21 episode also hit an 11-year audience high for “SNL” in L+7 viewers, scoring the largest time-shifted audience in that metric since its Oct. 18, 2008 telecast, which included an appearance by Sarah Palin, who was being impersonated by Tina Fey. That episode — hosted by Josh Brolin with musical guest Adele — hit 16.837 million viewers with a week of delayed viewing.

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