Even now that Saturday Night Live is in the midst of airing its 50th season, the show continues to have the ability to be controversial. For example, one famous actor who was recently at the heart of an SNL controversy revealed that they have no regrets about calling the show out. Another example of a recent Saturday Night Live scandal could have fans wondering if a major celebrity could never be seen on the sketch comedy show again.
On October 18, 2025, Sabrina Carpenter hosted a Saturday Night Live season 50 episode. On top of appearing in the episode's sketches, Carpenter also served as the musical guest. Getting to play double duty on the show is a big deal that typically is reserved solely for the biggest music stars. While Carpenter earned that honor, her swearing twice during one of her SNL song performances could make fans wonder if she might be banned from the show.
Could Sabrina Carpenter swearing on SNL twice get her banned?
In October 2025, Sabrina Carpenter performed the song "Nobody’s Son" from her album "Man's best Friend" during her appearance on Saturday Night Live. That performance led to controversy since the singer uttered the lyric “He sure [expletive] me up” twice during that performance. Since swearing on network TV is a big deal and given what is known about SNL, it is reasonable to wonder if Carpenter could be banned from the show for swearing like that.
In May 2022, Cosmopolitan published an article listing 12 former SNL hosts and musical guests who reportedly were banned from the show. That article, which listed names like Samuel L. Jackson, Chevy Chase, Adrien Brody, Sinéad O’Connor, and more, provided details about the several different ways those people supposedly got themselves banned. On top of that, a June 2017 article from The New Zealand Herald about when Jenny Slate was fired from SNL as a cast member shows that her departure was often linked to her accidental use of profanity on the show.
With those two pieces of data in mind, it makes sense to wonder if Carpenter's profanity could get her banned from Saturday Night Live. To be clear, there is no way to definitively state that Carpenter won't be banned from the show. Despite that, there are three main reasons to believe that Carpenter will be welcomed back to Lorne Michaels' show.
First off, an October 2025 Entertainment Weekly article makes it clear that Carpenter's profanity shouldn't get SNL or NBC in any hot water with the Federal Communications Commission. The article states that the FCC prohibits swearing and other obscene content on broadcast TV between 6 AM and 10 PM. Of course, SNL airs after that 10 p.m. threshold.
Secondly, it has to be noted that Carpenter is highly popular, as evidenced by the fact that she has nearly 50 million followers on Instagram as of October 2025. There is no doubt that the team behind SNL is likely to be more forgiving of a celebrity of Carpenter's caliber, since having her on the show in the future will be advantageous for all involved.
Finally, it is important to note that the belief that Jenny Slate was fired from Saturday Night Live for swearing on the show appears to be wrong. In October 2019, Jenny told InStyle about the real reason she was let go from SNL.
"By the way, everyone always thinks I got fired for saying [expletive]; I didn't that's not why I got fired. I just didn't belong there. I didn't do a good job, I didn't click. I have no idea how Lorne felt about me. All I know is, it didn't work for me, and I got fired.