Comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg opened Saturday Night Live UK by mocking Ed Sheeran as a world-famous red-headed puppet
following the pop star’s controversial decision to drop Macklemore from his Loop Tour. The late-night broadcast also featured sharp Weekend Update routines targeting Sheeran’s political neutrality and his support for Ukraine.
Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Opening Monologue Targets Ed Sheeran
Hosting the show on Saturday (September 26), Amelia Dimoldenberg used her opening monologue to address the music industry uproar surrounding Ed Sheeran. The 32-year-old comedian and Chicken Shop Date
host reflected on her interviewing career before directing her remarks toward the hitmaker.
“I’ve been incredibly privileged to have done so many interviews with people like Idris Elba, Cher and even a world-famous, red-headed puppet with a hand up his ass telling him what to say,”
Amelia Dimoldenberg, Comedian
As a photo of Elmo from “Sesame Street” popped up on the screen, Dimoldenberg quipped, No, the other one,
prompting the broadcast to replace the character with an image of her and Sheeran in a 2021 interview from her YouTube “dating” series. Starting her program back in 2014 to learn romance and seek a partner, Dimoldenberg hosts her viral show by interviewing famous figures at London fried chicken joints, though she recently announced the end of her series with the final series premiering on Oct. 2. A rep for the Thinking Out Loud
crooner, 35, wasn’t immediately available to Page Six for comment.
The Loop Tour Fallout Over Macklemore
The late-night skits arrived in the wake of an intense touring controversy. Following blowback over pro-Palestine remarks made during two New Jersey performances, Ed chose to cut his former opening act Macklemore from the rest of the tour earlier this month, which subsequently resulted in all supporting acts and the backing band withdrawing. Pressurised by Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft—who objected to having the rapper perform at his facility—Ed reportedly ousted Macklemore from the Loop Tour as a direct consequence of those recent New Jersey stage comments. Sheeran dropped Macklemore from his Loop Tour last week after a number of performance venues made it clear they would cancel concerts if the Seattle rapper remained on the line-up.
Weekend Update Skewer Sheeran’s Neutrality and Ukraine Support
Saturday Night Live UK took aim at Ed Sheeran after the recent controversy involving his Loop tour, with the late-night show’s second season premiere opening with a sketch about King Charles and Princess Diana that ended up focusing on Sheeran’s inability to pick a side. In the sketch, Charles, played by Larry Dean, is given a new AI bot named “DIANA” (a Deeply Intelligent, Autonomous, Neurokinetic Android, represented as “Jack Shep”) by a pair of tech billionaires (Celeste Dring and Freddie Meredith) at Buckingham Palace. After the AI goes rogue and shoots the billionaires, Charles says, We must do everything we can to resist,
to which Annabel Marlow as Sheeran responds, “Or maybe we shouldn’t. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. I was just outside sitting on the fence. Thing is, Your Majesty, I don’t like to take sides. I don’t want to alienate any of my fans, humans or robots. A lot of my tickets are bought by scalping bots. You know, sometimes, when it comes to conflicts, the bravest thing you can do is to say nothing at all.” The faux Sheeran then sings a song about how both sides can be equally right.
Later on the episode, Weekend Update,
hosted by cast members Ania Magliano and Paddy Young, again focused on Sheeran. Magliano sarcastically quipped that the controversy meant Sheeran’s tour was now “under threat” and warned fans not to get their hopes up, joking that there was a very real risk
he would not have to cancel it. The hosts described Macklemore as a good guy with bad music
and joked that this crisis was the worst thing to happen to Ed Sheeran fans since their head injury. Young added, Say what you want about Ed, but he has always been a passionate advocate of causes that are allowed,
delivering another pointed jab about the causes he champions, building on Sheeran’s well-documented support for Ukraine. Young also joked that a particularly walleyed pic of Sheeran showed him seeing both sides of the issue.
On the same “Update” segment, Paddy Young later did a segment on Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.N., saying a picture of Bibi holding up one finger was him explaining how many genocides he’s currently involved in,
before giving a compliment that He made the podium his own
and adding, And then the podium next to him and all the chairs and some of the benches. But in a sense, weren’t they always his?
