Sarah Sherman is setting the record straight.
The “Saturday Night Live” star, 32, spoke out for the first time about her “White Lotus” parody on the sketch comedy show that left Aimee Lou Wood, 31, feeling hurt last month.
“I was excited to play her because she’s so iconic, her character is so iconic,” Sherman told Vanity Fair in an interview published on Tuesday, “and I f–king obviously never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. Never in a million years did I get into comedy to make anyone upset. I feel terrible that anyone would feel bad.”
The April 12th episode poked fun at Donald Trump and his tariffs, using the characters from the third season of the HBO series to act out a family scene. Wood took to social media after the skit to call out Sherman’s take on her character, Chelsea.
The comic, however, insisted that she wasn’t trying to be mean about the “Sex Education” actress.
“The show is in constant dialogue with culture as it’s happening, and it happens really fast,” Sherman explained. “You have to be vigilant, you know what I mean?”
The “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” alum noted that when on “SNL,” there are a lot of different roles to juggle.
“There are a lot of things out of your control,” stated Sherman. “You’re playing a lot of different parts, you’re doing a lot of different roles that you’re not in control of. A lot of the process of the show has been, to me—how am I answering this? Staying vigilant but also being a part of the show—that is your job.”
After the original “SNL” sketch aired — which saw the cast member doing a British accent and wearing prosthetic teeth — Wood slammed the “mean and unfunny” parody on her social media.
“Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago,” she continued. “Yes, take the piss for sure — that’s what the show is about — but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”
Wood added, “On a positive note, everyone is agreeing with me about it so I’m glad I said something instead of going in on myself.”
The star shared with followers that she received “thousands” of supportive messages and received an apology from “Saturday Night Live.”
However, according to TMZ, the NBC series never issued a formal apology, but she “may have spoken to someone she knows on the show” who might have apologized.
HBO
The insiders alleged that “SNL” doesn’t “feel compelled to apologize” to Wood since the sketch comedy series “makes fun of everyone’s appearance.”
The English actress was seemingly tricked into reposting an apology from a fake account posing as Sherman, but she quickly deleted the post once she realized her mistake.
The real Sherman, meanwhile, did send Wood a gift afterwards.
Wood posted the “beautiful” gift to her Instagram Stories, sharing a close-up of a pretty floral arrangement.
“Thank you for the beautiful flowers,” she wrote.
Many of Sherman’s “SNL” co-stars have spoken out about the portrayal, coming to the funny woman’s defense.
“You know, we make stuff with love. I wasn’t writing the skit,” Chloe Fineman told Entertainment Tonight earlier this month. “I wasn’t necessarily a decision-maker in any of that. But I know Sarah [Sherman] and I absolutely worship her. I tried to have Amy the week before in something. And I just, like, worship her and know that it was from love and we’ve moved on.”
Bowen Yang addressed the controversial parody as well.
“However she reacted to that sketch is completely valid,” Yang, 34, told Extra in April. “With parody, you kind of forget the sort of human, emotional cost. I feel like it’s this thing that we tend to forget sometimes, and this is a reminder, and it seems like she has spoken to people at the show about it and hopefully, there’s room to sort of move on from it.”
