Julia Sweeney says it ‘was wrong’ to play a teenage Chelsea Clinton on ‘SNL’
Comedian Julia Sweeney says it “was wrong” for her to portray a teenage Chelsea Clinton on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s.
“People were saying how unattractively I was playing Chelsea — and all I did was not wear makeup and put braces on,” Sweeney told fellow “SNL” alums Dana Carvey and David Spade on the pair’s podcast, “Fly on the Wall,” released Wednesday.
Sweeney played President Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s young daughter on the long-running NBC sketch comedy show, with Phil Hartman as the then-commander in chief.
But Sweeney said her performance led to the then-first lady writing a letter of complaint to “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels.
“I understood what Hillary was saying, especially now that I’m a parent,” she said.
“It’s like, yeah, f— off, you know? I mean, don’t play kids,” Sweeney, who appeared on the show from 1990-94, continued.
“That was wrong. She was right. That was wrong.”
In 1993, “Saturday Night Live” star Mike Myers reportedly penned a letter to the White House apologizing for a 1992 joke included as part of the show’s “Wayne’s World” skit about the appearance of Chelsea Clinton, who was 13 at the time.
The now-43-year-old Clinton has spoken out before about serving as a punchline and media target as a teen growing up in the White House.
“I had a different experience with comedy in some ways than probably a lot of people because I was made fun of so much as a child by people who were professional comics,” she said last year on an episode of her Apple TV+ series, “Gutsy.”
“When ‘SNL’ made fun of me, I was like, wow, a group of adults sat in a room, [and] all decided this was a good idea. Nobody thought, like, maybe you shouldn’t make fun of children,” Clinton said. “I was like I just don’t think that’s funny or OK.”
In 2017, Clinton defended then-President Trump’s young son, Barron, after social media users mocked the 10-year-old.
“Barron Trump deserves the chance every child does — to be a kid,” she said.
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