Hours after labeling Saturday Night Live’s “White Potus” sketch “mean and unfunny,” Aimee Lou Wood defended the comedian who portrayed her White Lotus character.
Wood took to Instagram late on Sunday, April 13, sharing three Stories that deep dived her disapproval of the parody, which aired during the Saturday, April 12, episode. “Not @sarahsquirm’s fault x,” Wood, who portrayed Chelsea in season 3 of The White Lotus, wrote over a photo of herself gazing into the camera. “Not hating on her, hating on the concept x.”
The actress revealed via the social media platform earlier on Sunday that she was not a fan of the sketch, which saw the episode’s host Jon Hamm, guest star Scarlett Johansson and Sherman — sporting a set of fake teeth — team up for a political spin on White Lotus characters.
Wood’s initial verdict revealed she thought the sketch was “mean and unfunny” while also claiming that she’d received apologies from the NBC variety show since it aired. “Such a shame cuz I had such a great time watching it a couple weeks ago. 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 wrote earlier on Sunday.
Adding to her defence of Sherman, 32, later, Wood wrote of being “thin skinned.”
“I actually love being taken the piss out of when it’s clever and in good spirits. But the joke was about fluoride,” Wood wrote over another Story’s selfie. “I have big gap teeth not bad teeth. I don’t mind caricature — I understand that’s what SNL is. But the rest of the skit was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on.”
A third Instagram Story that evening crystallized Wood’s view on the matter. Seemingly screenshotting a comment that agreed with her stance, Wood shared, “It was a sharp and funny skit until it suddenly took a screeching turn into 1970’s misogyny.”
“This sums up my view x,” Wood wrote over the screenshot.
During the sketch, Hamm, 54, who portrayed Walton Goggins’ Rick as he played Robert F. Kennedy Jr., asked Sherman, “I’ve been having these insane ideas, like what if we took all the fluoride out of the drinking water? What would that do to people’s teeth?” Sherman responded, “Fluoride? What’s that?”
(Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy Jr., 71, has called for the end of community water fluoridation, per CBS News. The news outlet notes that fluoride has been incorporated into public water supplies for decades in order to help prevent tooth decay.)
This isn’t the first time Wood has addressed the attention she receives as a result of her teeth. During an interview with The Sunday Times, published on April 5, Wood said, “It’s, like, cool, and now I want to stop f***ing talking about it. Can I talk about my character? Why am I talking about my gnashers? It’s like now I’m just a pair of front teeth.”
Back in 2020, Wood also spoke to Stylist about them. “I’d always be super confident when I went to theater auditions, but if it was a TV thing I’d be so shocked when I got a recall,” she told the outlet at the time. “I sometimes thought, ‘Oh, a Channel 4 thing, I might have a chance on there.’ Then Sex Education came along and I was like, ‘Well, what have I seen on Netflix? Everyone has perfect Hollywood teeth.’”
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