Over the years there have been a lot of stories and rumors about Lorne Michaels, the head man at Saturday Night Live and the guy that has been credited with making the show possible. On one hand it seems that anyone who makes it to the top is going to eventually have to suffer the slings and arrows that are tossed at them in the form of gossip and rumor. But on the other hand if there’s any shred of validity to a single rumor then the entire lot of them might start to look as though they’re a little more feasible than they were in the beginning. It’s hard to say whether the rumors are true or not since there’s too much hearsay involved, but all in all Lorne Michaels didn’t reach his current position by being everyone’s favorite person all the time.
Here are a few rumors that have surfaced concerning him in some way.
5. He pressured Chris Kattan into having sex with a director to get a film made.
The way it sounds is that Chris was feeling pressured since Lorne had so much power over his career that he went to have a consensual sexual episode with a female director as Lorne thought it would give him a better chance of his movie, A Night at the Roxbury, being made. Chris did have sex with the woman but he has since claimed that he felt coerced by the director and Lorne into doing this since otherwise the movie might not have happened. One has to keep wondering just how many people are going to keep blaming others for decisions they made that they didn’t agree with. It might have happened the way Chris thought or it might have been that he was a little too concerned with what seemed to be a shaky career.
4. He’s been asked why SNL doesn’t cast black women.
This had to have come before the hiring of Leslie Jones since otherwise it would have been kind of an odd question to ask. But it is a question that does beg an answer since there have been a few black women on the show, maybe not as full cast members in the past but definitely still there. This kind of question however seems to imply that women of color simply weren’t allowed until it was finally noticed that they weren’t there. But in all honesty it could be that those who auditioned weren’t considered right for the show in the past, or there just weren’t any black women auditioning throughout the years. It’s hard to tell unless you were there and saw what was going on.
3. He believed that Sinead O’Connor’s stance against the pope was a brave move.
People pick the strangest platforms from which to send their messages now and again, but Sinead O’Connor definitely picked the wrong one in the eyes of many people when she tore a picture of the pope to pieces and shouted “fight the real enemy”. It was a moment when a lot of people were holding their breath waiting to see what would happen, but Lorne actually thought it was a moment of bravery that deserved some respect. Granted, she was standing up for what she and many people believed in, but taking the time to do such a thing on a TV show that’s live to millions of people seems like it was a bit much.
2. He was mentioned in a rant about Seth Meyers.
This didn’t have as much to do with Lorne directly but it was a jab that couldn’t be easily dismissed as Ben Domenech, the husband of Meghan McCain, went after talk show host Seth Meyers, who was connected to Lorne for a while since he was a part of SNL, in a very rude and lewd manner over Twitter of all places. It’s funny how someone can seem so brave and confident in their words over social media isn’t it? The courage people get when blasting each other with words over a hand-held device or a keyboard is amazing, but it would be great if people stopped and realized what they were saying now and again.
1. He downplayed the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Some folks might want to roll their eyes and think ‘oh God not this again’ but as Emily Crane and Chris Spargo from Daily Mail describe it the reason behind why Lorne didn’t take to absolutely roasting Harvey is that it’s “a New York thing”. It might seem petty to go after Lorne for something like this but with all that’s been happening in the news whether it be entertainment or politics, the ‘New York thing’ explanation doesn’t work since the sketches depicting Donald Trump kind of expose him as a hypocrite. Another explanation though is that a Harvey Weinstein joke was attempted in rehearsal and it just didn’t pan out. Now you can really roll your eyes.
Whether he’s a nice guy or kind of a sleaze is hard to tell since quite honestly it’s easy to lob rumors at someone in his position.
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