NBC’s censors must have had an off night on Saturday, as Sabrina Carpenter sang the F-word twice as she pulled double duty as host and musical guest of this week’s Saturday Night Live.
Carpenter performed the songs “Manchild” and “Nobody’s Son,” both from her latest studio album, Man’s Best Friend, on the Studio 8H stage in that October 18 SNL episode. And it was during the bridge of the latter song that she twice sang the lyric “He sure f***ed me up.”
And as Variety reports, the profanity wasn’t bleeped or muted in Saturday Night Live’s East Coast broadcast on NBC or its simulcast on Peacock. West Coast viewers, however, reported that the F-words were muted in the broadcast in their time zone. (See a censored version of the performance below.)
Carpenter also dropped an F-bomb at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards last month, but that time, censors caught the broadcast-unfriendly word in time. “This world, as we all know, can be so full of criticism and discrimination and negativity,” she said in her acceptance speech after her previous album, Short n’ Sweet, won the Best Album category. “So to get to be a part of something so often, more than not, that is something that can bring you light, make you smile, make you dance and make you feel like the world is your f***ing oyster, I am so grateful, so grateful to do that.”
Saturday Night Live accidentally aired profanity this April as well, as Ego Nwodim’s Ms. Eggy character solicited audience participation during a “Weekend Update” bit.
As she bemoaned the dating scene, Nwodim’s Ms. Eggy said, “These men ain’t what?” and held the microphone to the audience.
In response, an audience member shouted out “s***,” and that profane outburst that made it uncensored to SNL’s Peacock simulcast.
“We finna get fined for that,” Ms. Eggy replied, as Nwodim barely contained her astonishment and Colin Jost and Michael Che cracked up behind her. “‘Worth a damn,’ sucka. Y’all gonna have to pay for that. Lorne [Michaels] gonna be mad at y’all.”
Saturday Night Live, Saturdays, 11:30/10:30c, NBC & Peacock