Nikki Glaser Jokes That New York Is “Epstein’s Original Island” in SNL Monologue

Come­di­an Nik­ki Glaser made her Sat­ur­day Night Live host­ing debut with a mono­logue that imme­di­ate­ly pushed bound­aries, open­ing with an irrev­er­ent nod to Manhattan’s dark­er asso­ci­a­tions:
“Here I am in New York City, Epstein’s orig­i­nal island!”

Fear, Humor, and Taboo Topics

Glaser, 41, quick­ly revis­it­ed the sub­ject of Jef­frey Epstein and his accom­plice Ghis­laine Maxwell while jok­ing about gen­er­a­tional fears among her Gen Z friends.
“They have a real­ly big fear of being traf­ficked,” she said.
“In my 20s, I just feared good old-fash­ioned rape. I didn’t think it would be a career. We didn’t think it was any­thing more than a temp job at a frat house futon.”

She added that her younger friends tease her about her looks:
“They’re like, ‘We’re safer when you’re with us because they think you’re our madam. You have rest­ing Ghis­laine face, so keep that up.’”

Dark Humor on Sensitive Subjects

Glaser didn’t hold back on taboo mate­r­i­al, segue­ing into a sto­ry about her four-year-old nephew ask­ing to show­er with her.
“My sister’s like, ‘He can take a show­er with you. It’s fine. He does it with us,’” she recalled.
“‘OK, that’s fine for you guys, but are you okay with an adult show­er­ing with your child? … What if I molest him?’ She was like, ‘Would you?’ I was like, ‘No! I would nev­er! That’s dis­gust­ing! But that’s what I’d say if I was gonna.’”

Her point, she said, was about the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of human impuls­es:
“Don’t trust any­one. I don’t even trust myself,” Glaser con­tin­ued.
“I don’t want to go in there. How do you become a pedophile? You don’t get to choose what you’re into, dude. What if it’s one of those things you don’t know you until you get in there, and you’re like, ‘Well, this is my thing,’ and it opens up a part of my brain? I know that sounds crazy, but there have been so many things in my life that I’ve been like, ‘I would nev­er do that.’ And now I’m like, ‘Looks kind of fun, actu­al­ly.’”

Jabs at Trump and Herself

Lat­er in the mono­logue, Glaser piv­ot­ed to a lighter subject—spray tans and Don­ald Trump’s sig­na­ture look.
“He picked an insane shade. He went pret­ty dark,” she said.
“He didn’t go Kamala, but he picked a shade that half of Amer­i­ca was like, ‘Okay, we can still tell he’s white.’”

Turn­ing the joke on her­self, Glaser com­pared her own tan to “cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion.”
“It is kind of insane that white peo­ple can just paint their skin,” she said.
“I feel like that’s cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not black­face, but it is Guatemalan leg. This is not my leg. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, me llamo is Nik­ki!’ Am I say­ing that right?”

What’s Next for Glaser

This episode marked Nik­ki Glaser’s first time host­ing Sat­ur­day Night Live. She’s set to return as host of the Gold­en Globes next year for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive time, and Hulu will debut a new stand-up spe­cial from her that was taped in Octo­ber.

Musi­cal guest Som­br also made his SNL debut dur­ing Glaser’s episode.