Aimee Lou Wood was not a fan of Saturday Night Live’s portrayal of The White Lotus — or her beloved character, Chelsea.
“I did find the SNL thing mean and unfunny xo,” Wood, 31, wrote via her Instagram Story on Sunday, April 13, adding in another slide, “Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago. Yes, take the piss for sure — that’s what the show is about — but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”
In the NBC variety show’s Saturday, April 12, “White Potus” sketch, several SNL members — including host Jon Hamm and guest star Scarlett Johansson — teamed up to portray different season 3 White Lotus characters with a political spin.
Hamm channeled Walton Goggins’ Rick as he played Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while Sarah Sherman portrayed Wood’s Chelsea with a set of fake teeth.
“I’ve been having these insane ideas, like what if we took all the fluoride out of the drinking water? What would that do to people’s teeth?” Hamm asked Sherman in the sketch, who replied with wide eyes, “Fluoride? What’s that?”
(Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has called for the end of community water fluoridation, per CBS News. The news org notes that Fluoride has been incorporated into public water supplies for decades in order to help prevent tooth decay.)
After Wood shared her thoughts on the sketch, she took to her Instagram Story to share that others were in agreement.
“On a positive note, everyone is agreeing with me about it, so I’m glad I said something instead of going in on myself,” Wood wrote, while sharing messages from fans about the skit.
In one DM, a fan pointed out that “everyone else in that parody was a political figure who was being mocked. The only character who wasn’t political was Chelsea, and they were clearly just taking the piss out of your appearance.” Wood shared a screenshot of the note and wrote, “Correct.”
While another user said Sherman’s “Mancunian accent she was attempting” was “terrible,” Wood added with a crying laughing emoji, “At least get the accent right, seriously. I respect accuracy even if it’s mean.”
Hours later, Wood shared an update after airing her grievances with SNL. “I’ve had apologies from SNL,” she wrote via her Instagram Story, remaining tight-lipped on who she had been in contact with or what was said.
Wood’s comments on SNL comes as The White Lotus star made headlines for feud rumors with costar Goggins. The speculation began when costar Jason Isaacs made a comment to The Guardian about “alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke.”
Eagle-eyed fans began wondering whether Isaacs was referring to Wood and Goggins — who had an onscreen romance on the show — after Deuxmoi shared a blind item about costars who had an affair. The speculation continued to spark as Goggins and Wood stopped following each other online.
Neither Goggins nor Wood has weighed in on the rumors. Goggins has spoken about having his wife, Nadia Conners, and their son in Thailand while filming. Isaacs, for his part, walked back his statements.
“All these amateur Sherlock Holmes out there, they’re extrapolating, ‘Well, one person posted this.’ And nobody has the slightest clue what they’re talking about. People who think they’re onto something, and then it gets magnified because of a thousand other people. Nobody has any clue what I’m talking about,” he shared on SiriusXM’s TODAY Show Radio series The Happy Hour earlier this month. “I’m talking about people you’ve never met before half the time, in different departments and the people in the hair and costume and in the accounts department and stuff.”
He concluded: “First of all, it’s none of your business. I’m just saying it wasn’t a holiday. Partly I started saying that is because people think we were on a seven-month holiday and believe me, it felt like work a lot of the time. It was insanely hot and there’s all the normal social tensions you get anywhere, but for all of you thinking you’ve cracked it by something you think someone has posted or is in a photo or not, you’re just so far from the truth, believe me.”
