Matt Damon
Matt Damon’s controversial Brett Kavanaugh sketch on SNL overshadowed a skilful hosting turn that mixed pointed political satire with oddball, finely acted comedy. Saturday Night Live / Youtube Screenshot

Matt Damon's Saturday Night Live return in New York at the weekend has triggered an angry backlash online after a cold open sketch showed him, in character as US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joking, 'Your body, my choice!'

Damon was back in Studio 8H as guest host to promote his upcoming summer film The Odyssey, marking only his third time fronting Saturday Night Live despite decades as an A-list regular on the show's guest bench. He used his monologue to poke fun at that fact and at his long-running creative rivalry with Ben Affleck, who has hosted five times. What followed was a night of high-energy sketches, a solid turn from musical guest Noah Kahan and, at the centre of the noise now swirling around the episode, a pointed political opener that did not stay on the screen.

SNL Sketch Puts Kavanaugh Back at the Bar

The Matt Damon Saturday Night Live sketch that lit the fuse was set in Martin's Tavern, a Washington, DC, bar. Colin Jost played US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, back in his recurring guise as an aggressive, loudmouthed drinker boasting about an Iran war he claims to have started. Damon's Kavanaugh arrives with a gavel in hand and orders a 'six-three decision' — six beers and three shots of Jameson — an on-the-nose nod to the current 6-3 conservative tilt of the Supreme Court of the United States.

From there, the script leans heavily into politics. As Hegseth crows, 'Can you believe I just started a war?,' Matt Damon's Kavanaugh fires back, 'Can you believe I ended abortion? Your body, my choice!' The line is designed to sting, flipping the language of bodily autonomy used by abortion-rights activists into a triumphalist taunt.

The justice then flaunts what appears to be a grotesquely contorted electoral map before revealing it is actually his field sobriety test drawing, the joke being that even drunk, he still gets to wield power. He briefly laments a 'male loneliness crisis,' only for the moment to be undercut by the arrival of Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel, now installed in the sketch universe as FBI director and part-time bourbon entrepreneur, proudly waving a bottle of 'Kaaaaash'- branded whiskey and insisting, 'Somehow this is a real thing that I, the FBI director, have made. This is real!'

Damon's Kavanaugh then tops himself again, telling the bar that the court is secretly about to permit Donald Trump a third term because, he claims, Trump has 'found the original Constitution' with 'Psych!' written at the end. The three men wrap it up bellowing Chumbawamba's 'Tubthumping' and shouting out their drinks.

The line now ricocheting around social media — 'Your body, my choice' — is clearly intended as a savage satire of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade. Whether it lands as clever or crass depends on where one sits. Reproductive rights campaigners online have condemned the gag as trivialising women's loss of autonomy, while conservative commenters have accused the show of smearing Kavanaugh and treating the Supreme Court as a punchline.

NBC and Saturday Night Live have not issued any response to the criticism at the time of writing, and Damon has not commented publicly on the sketch outside the show.

Damon SNL Turn Shows Range Beyond Controversy

Stripping out the politics for a moment, Damon's night on Saturday Night Live was a reminder of why producers keep turning to movie stars when they want a host who can handle anything thrown at them.

Not every sketch worked. An early Godzilla-style parody set in a command centre devolved into a string of spit takes from Mikey Day and never quite justified the chaos. But Damon's performances elsewhere did what good hosting turns do: they nudged lightweight premises into something sharper and weirder.

In a pre-taped Mother's Day sketch, he played himself in Mom: The Movie, a gently absurd film-within-a-show in which Ashley Padilla's character enjoys a life of perfect, stress-free domesticity. The children only bring good news. There are no arguments. She is married to Damon, now Rhonda Damon after they meet over a giant turquoise necklace, and the whole thing is streaming on the deeply implausible HomeGoods Plus. It is a joke that relies on Damon leaning into his own heart-throb persona while also mocking the way sentimental Mother's Day content flattens real motherhood.

Elsewhere, he turned up as a middle-aged everyman repeatedly beaten up by 'tough guys' who sometimes turn out to be children, and as a father spiralling into frustration in a deliberately odd cat litter advert. As a substitute teacher begging unmoved pupils to dance, he looked convincingly defeated. Those characters are thin on the page, but Damon shades them with a sort of hangdog sadness that keeps them from becoming throwaway.

The standout of the night, though, was a blisteringly fast final sketch in which Damon and Sarah Sherman play married auctioneers turning a live sale into a marital breakdown. They rattle through grievances about weight, infidelity, drinking and sex while their four 'sons,' played by adult cast members, silently hold up numbered paddles. It is undeniably gimmicky, but the pair sell it with such control that it feels like watching two people sprint along a tightrope without once looking down.

In his monologue, Damon half-joked that he hopes The Odyssey becomes the summer's biggest film and that it does not keep him away from Saturday Night Live for another long stretch. On this showing, the show would be foolish not to keep his number close, even if some of its sharpest jokes continue to cut both ways.

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