Saturday Night Live UK opened its latest episode with a sketch parodying Melania Trump’s recent statement denying any friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Comic Emma Sidi played the First Lady, appearing in a south London garden in Croydon where residents were holding a barbecue.
In the sketch, Sidi’s Melania insisted: “Never have I ever been friends with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.” The bemused barbecue guests, played by Al Nash, Annabel Marlow and Jack Shep, asked why she was there. Melania replied that she wanted to stop them spreading rumours, despite the group insisting they had not been discussing her.
The parody continued with Melania repeatedly bringing up Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, before explaining she has no friends “since they all randomly died in a maximum security prison.” The sketch also took aim at Keir Starmer, Peter Mandelson, Donald Trump, Rishi Sunak and other targets.
Host Jack Whitehall opened the show with a monologue about his upcoming wedding to Roxy Horner, joking that planning it was “like planning a royal wedding” and that it could be “ruined if my uncle turned up.” The music act was Jorja Smith.
Ratings for the Sky One show have fallen sharply since its debut. The third episode, hosted by Riz Ahmed, drew 130,100 viewers at 10pm, down 36% from the previous week’s 205,000 and 42% below the 226,000 who watched Tina Fey host the series opener, according to BARB figures. The show still outperforms the average Sky slot and the UK broadcast of the US version.
