Earlier this month, Saturday Night Live announced that they'd added three new cast members to the show to make up for letting go of both Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah before the start of season 42. While many have praised Saturday Night Live for bringing on Melissa Villaseñor (of America's Got Talent fame) as the first Latina cast member, Buzzfeed is reporting that Villaseñor appears to have been on a mass purge of some of the offensive tweets on her Twitter page.
I'm excited about the first latina on SNL but not gonna lie: deleting 2K tweets in 5 days is... odd. pic.twitter.com/p7D5Alm6qE
These days, whenever someone is given one of these positions on such an acclaimed, long-running program, people immediately check out their Twitters—either to see what the big deal is about said person or to find out if they've said some trash shit in their past. Trevor Noah went through this exact situation back in March of 2015 when he was announced as Jon Stewart's Daily Show replacement. And who knows, maybe Villaseñor was doing some preemptive thinking and decided to get rid of the fuck shit early on. I can remember thinking it was odd that, on the day of her announcement, her Twitter page was private. But it looks like people have actually caught some of the tweets (many of which that are from 2010) she'd been looking to get rid of, and they aren't good.
All props to @aurabogado. I just took screenshots since @melissavcomedy is quickly scrubbing tweets like these... @nbcsnl @SNLUpdate pic.twitter.com/KXU9Z4DVqD
"I hate those mexicans on bikes," one says. "[T]hey threw something at my car. The world doesn't need them." She's mentioned that her roommates (sic) dog "resembles and old japansese man" as well. If these are jokes, they aren't funny, which Aura Bogado points out.
Some people don't seem to get that some of Melissa Villaseñor's tweets weren't jokes. They were just racist statements.
Although...
Now, what is supposed to happen in this situation? The Trevor Noah Twitter dustup didn't get him ousted, and while SNL got a PR win for hiring Villaseñor on as their first Latina castmember, it doesn't appear to be making a comment on this. Buzzfeed reported an SNL rep said neither SNL or Villaseñor would be commenting on this situation. As of now, it doesn't look like Villaseñor is about to get Jenny Slate'd, but one has to wonder: will there be any comment made about this situation on the show? Is this a matter of them not wanting to fan the flames anymore before SNL returns on October 1? That's probably it.
