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The 44th season of Saturday Night Live premieres on September 29, tomorrow night, with The Last Jedi actor Adam Driver serving as host, and Kanye West as musical guest. But Ye wasn’t actually SNL‘s first choice, which is sure to go down well if/when he reads reports about it. The rapper filled in after Ariana Grande—who hasn’t appeared on SNL since she started dating cast member Pete Davidson—backed out of performing earlier this week.
“We had Ariana drop out for emotional reasons two days ago,” SNL producer and writer Lorne Michaels told James Andrew Millers in an interview on his podcast Origins. “Then Kanye stepped up, so he will be there.”
This works out perfectly for Kanye, given that his new album Yandhi premieres the same night. And it isn’t shocking that Ari’s taking time out of the spotlight, given the recent death of former flame and best friend Mac Miller. On Thursday evening, she shared a series of emotional tweets seeming to ask for private time and personal space (although which she ended up deleting many of the messages later that evening).
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“Given the events of the past couple of years, Ariana is going to take some much-needed time to heal and mend,” the pop star’s rep told People. “She will be staying close to home and using this period to spend time with her loved ones and work on new music without deadline. She thanks her fans for their understanding.”
Ari is still set to perform in the Wicked TV special next month as of right now and, given her well-documented love of musical theater, it’s very possible showtunes will prove healing–to some extent–in their own right?
Watch Saturday Night Live‘s season premiere on Saturday, September 29 at 11:30pm.