Saturday Night Live: 30 scandals and secrets you didn’t know
By Jeremy Dick
22. Steven Seagal is named by Lorne Michaels as worst guest host ever
Not every celebrity brought in to host SNL is going to work out. We know this going in. But sometimes, even the show doesn’t know until it’s too late. So maybe that’s why the action movie star Steven Seagal was brought in to host a 1991 episode, even though he’s never shown signs of being funny before then.
It was evident why Seagal focused on action films and didn’t do comedies. He was clearly out of his comfort zone when trying to act in these sketches. On top of that, he was just as difficult backstage. According to David Spade, Seagal was by far the worst guest host he ever had to work with. Apparently, Seagal was not a team player and was very uncooperative with the other performers. Things had to be his way.
On a later episode with Nicolas Cage hosting, Cage jokingly said to Lorne Michaels that he must be the biggest jerk ever on the show. With complete seriousness, Lorne replied, “No, no. That would be Steven Seagal.”
Having the head of the show call out Seagal right there on the series itself was a vicious way of paying back the rude martial artist.