SNL rookie Jenny Slate’s job at “Saturday Night Live” is safe, at least for now. According to NBC spokeswoman Sharon Pannozzo, the comedian shouldn’t be worrying about her job despite the Internet rumors: “No truth to firing conjecture. She will not be fired.”
Lorne Michaels, the show’s executive producer was sympathetic and says that the moment was especially traumatic for Slate because “it was literally her first time on the show.”
“There was nothing dirty, just a slip of the tongue. It was ‘frickin’, frickin’, frickin’ and then boom!”
“The pain that Jenny is going through is, I’m sure, considerably worse than that experienced by anybody who saw it. It has to be an actor’s worst nightmare. Your first time on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and this happens. You could sense the mortification in the studio.”
Michaels also indicated that since the program is only shown live on the East coast and is tape-delayed to the rest of the country, the slip was only heard on the East coast broadcast. It was replaced with the intended ‘frickin’ for the other feeds.
NBC reported to not have received many angry viewer phone calls, and because the mistake was aired after prime time at 12:40 am, Michaels himself does not expect the ‘SNL’ to face any serious fines from the Federal Communications Commission watchdog.