Two weeks ago, Charli XCX made her debut as host of SNL. Despite a successful first stint, Charli was full of nerves heading up to the live stage and turned to fellow host Ariana Grande for tips. But ever the original brat, Charli apparently didn’t follow through on Grande’s advice.
In a recent profile for Variety, Charli discussed her upcoming foray into acting roles, a move that Grande has fully supported her on. In addition to guest starring in the Amazon Prime series Overcompensating, Charli will appear in several upcoming films, including queer legend Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death remake, and Julia Jackman’s adaptation of the graphic novel 100 Nights of Hero.
But Charli soft launched her acting career by hosting SNL. While she has appeared on the venerable show as a musical guest in 2014 and 2022, she doubled as both host and musical guest this time around.
It was a night of heavy lifting for the Brat icon, but luckily Grande (who hosted the month prior) had her back. “She’d obviously just done and killed it, so I was getting tips,” Charli explained. “She was just like, ‘You’re gonna be amazing, just relax, it’s so fun.’”
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Although Charli was eager for help, it turns out that she gave more weight to showrunner Lorne Michael’s advice over Grande’s.
“But outside of her advice about contact lenses — which I ended up not going with on the night — I really heeded [Lorne Michaels’] advice, which was just to trust the process, go with the flow and not try and overly control things that would automatically get figured out along the way,” she said. “I listened to that advice because, I mean, how can you not?”
No matter whose advice she was following, Charli’s comedic acting carried the night. First, she kicked off her monologue with a killer opening line. “For those of you who recognize me, you might know me from my album Brat,” Charli said. “But don’t worry if you don’t. There is nothing wrong with being straight.”
And throughout the night, there were multiple nods to Grande. Charli appeared in the “Babymoon” sketch, a sequel to Grande’s hit “Bridesmaid’s Speech” sketch. She also appeared in a spoof on the Wicked movie casting process, playing fellow gay pop icon Adele. So one way or another, Grande was with her in spirit.
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