Inde Navarrette brought sharp jokes and Halloween fun to her first hosting appearance on Saturday Night Live. The Obession star used personal gags with a pointed swipe at Shane Gillis. Navarrette, who will play Rogue in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie, used her opening monologue to revisit a joke that drew criticism earlier this month.
Inde Navarrette’s SNL monologue came with a Shane Gillis quip
Navarrette opened by addressing her role in the horror hit Obsession and dismissing comparisons between herself and her character, Nikki. “A lot of people ask me if I’m anything like my character Nikki, and I’m like, no.” She insisted that her real-life relationship was relaxed, only for the camera to reveal her boyfriend, Nick Aiello, tied to a chair and gagged in the audience.
The Marvel announcement gave Navarrette the opening for her Gillis jab. She told the audience she could hardly believe she was joining the superhero franchise, then explained that she had been hitting the gym to get in shape.
Her punchline involved wearing a “little w—- outfit” to work out each morning. The joke was a reference to Gillis’ recent SNL monologue, in which he mocked women’s gym clothes and described their brightly colored shorts as “neon, like, artificial bait.”
The Halloween special leaned into the weird and wacky, with several cast members showing up in unexpected getups. Marcello Hernandez played a “sexy” TSA agent; Kam Patterson took on Elizabeth Holmes; and Jeremy Culhane suited up as Wolverine while campaigning for a spot in the next X-Men movie. Gracie Abrams also returned to the stage as a musical guest, marking her second appearance after making her debut in 2024.
Navarrette bounced between several offbeat roles throughout the episode, appearing as a ghost haunting the Queen Mary, a contestant on The Uninterested Woman Dating Show and Ryder in PAW Patrol: Special Victims Unit.
One sketch took an even stranger turn when she played an inventor’s widow who encounters PD-44, a robot that eventually attacks her date. The machine’s name itself was the punchline, standing for “P—- Destroyer.”
