Lorne Michaels' Real-Time Reaction to Ashlee Simpson's 'SNL' Lip Syncing Unearthed in Newly Released 2004 Audio
Unearthed audio from the week of October 23, 2004 at Saturday Night Live was just released, and if you’re wondering why that week is significant…it’s when Ashlee Simpson performed.
While live on TV that Saturday night in 2004, Ashlee was found to be lip-syncing during her performance as musical guest.
Well, it just so happened that during that week on the show, 60 Minutes was doing interviews with the cast and crew, and they got SNL creator Lorne Michael‘s real-time reaction to what went down.
Keep reading to find out more…
The unearthed audio was released in the new episode of the “60 Minutes: A Second Look” podcast.
“Oh, I think accidents happen. I think that’s the nature of live television,” Lorne said at the time in reaction to the now-infamous incident,
60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stahl then said it’s his job to make sure that these kinds of accidents don’t happen.
Lorne responded, “Right. You know, there’s things that you’re not in control of.”
Lesley then commented that Lorne seemed so calm, to which he responded, “It’s like the same way you’d feel if you’re a ballplayer and it’s rained out. It really doesn’t have anything to do with you. You don’t control the rain. And I think in this case, it was much more ‘what just happened,’ which is, I think, what everybody else felt.”
“And I was in the control room going, well, I mean there’s just egg out there now. I mean there was nothing to watch,” he continued of the moment.
Here’s what Ashlee Simpson previously said about the SNL debacle.