The White Lotus season 3 star Aimee Lou Wood has criticised Saturday Night Live for its "mean" portrayal of her during a sketch over the weekend.
The latest episode of the long-running US comedy show did a parody called 'The White POTUS', with the cast members playing Donald Trump, his family, and fellow politicians holidaying in a fancy Thailand resort.
Almost all of the jokes about the characters were of the political variety, with a few exceptions. In this case, cast member Sarah Sherman played a parody of Wood's character Chelsea, with prosthetic teeth and an exaggerated accent and with a line stating she had never heard of fluoride.
After the airing of the sketch, Wood said on her Instagram Stories that she "did find the SNL thing mean and unfunny".
"Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago," she added. "Yes, take the piss for sure – that's what the show is about – but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way!"
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She shared multiple messages from the "thousands" she was sent that criticised the sketch for how it portrayed her, and added a note to a fan message about how poor Sherman's Manchester accent was.
"At least get the accent right seriously. I respect accuracy even if it's mean 😂," she said with a laughing emoji.
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In another Story later on, Wood said: "I am not thin-skinned. I actually love being taken the piss out of when it's clever and in good spirits. But the joke was about fluoride.
"I have big gap teeth not bad teeth. I don't mind caricature – I understand that's what SNL is. But the rest of the sketch was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on."
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Wood said she wasn't hating on Sherman and believed it wasn't the comedian's fault, but she hated "the concept", agreeing with a fan comment that called it "1970s misogyny".
The star also confirmed that SNL has apologised to her.
In the US, Saturday Night Live airs on NBC and streams on Peacock, while The White Lotus season 3 just finished on HBO and streams on Max. In the UK, both shows can be streamed via Sky/NOW.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
