Thirty Years Later, Nora Dunn Is Still Paying the Price for Boycotting ‘SNL’ When Andrew Dice Clay Hosted

For months now, Saturday Night Live has enjoyed a great deal of fanfare for making it to its 50th season, which concludes on Saturday. But the show will also mark another anniversary this week — one that creator Lorne Michaels would likely prefer to forget.

On May 12, 1990, Andrew Dice Clay — one of the biggest stand-up comedians at that time — hosted SNL. In recent decades, Dice has toned down his image with funny TikTok videos and a surprisingly good performance in the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, but in 1990, he was incredibly controversial. In addition to his dirty takes on nursery rhymes, Dice’s stand-up was rampant with sexist, racist and homophobic jokes. This garnered two reactions from the general public: hooting-and-hollering devotion from the tens of thousands who poured into stadiums to see the leather-clad comic, and abject revulsion from those who felt the comedian was appealing to our worst instincts by fueling the fires of hate. Even George Carlin, who was dubbed “the dean of counterculture comedians,” criticized Dice for using comedy to punch down on those most vulnerable.

Because of his controversial brand of comedy, SNL cast member Nora Dunn was shocked to learn Dice was an upcoming host. Rather than perform alongside someone she found to be morally reprehensible, Dunn refused to participate in the show that week, and before long, musical guest Sinéad O’Connor dropped out as well. The stand garnered major headlines — some applauding the stance, and others decrying it as a cynical grab for attention from a departing cast member.

But rather than remove Dice as the host before the episode, SNL decided to double-down by keeping Dice and making repeated jokes at Dunn’s expense. Still, Dunn is proud of her stance — something no other cast member in the show’s 50-year history has done — even if, she says, she’s still paying the price for it, including at the recent “SNL50” celebration.

Where were you at in your tenure at SNL when this all happened? You’d been on the show for five years at that point. Did you plan on coming back the next year?

I actually wasn’t coming back after my five years, but the reason was only because I didn’t want to do any more sketches. I didn’t have any more sketches. I was really anxious to move on. A lot of what I call “kids” were coming in, and I thought, “God, this humor is now bending towards 12-year-old boys.” That was Adam Sandler — great guy, but I have to tell you, when I saw him on the show playing that thing, I was like, “Time to leave.” 

I had told Al Franken, he was the person I communicated with, and he kept asking if I was staying and I said no. He said, “Well, Lorne doesn’t like to face his cast at all when it comes to if you’re leaving the show or staying. He doesn’t like anybody to leave.” So I told Al, “I just can’t come back. I don’t have another sketch in me.”

How did you react when you heard that Andrew Dice Clay was going to host your second-to-last show?

I told Al, “I ain’t doing the show. I’m not coming in.” I called several other cast members and said, “Did you know that Andrew Dice Clays is doing the show?” And they’re like, “No.” Some were saying, “Well, I’m not going to perform with him,” and, “I won’t write for him.” I said, "Well, I’m not going to work with him.” That’s how the word got out to NBC. Then, it must’ve been Monday morning that I got a call from the Associated Press who told me that Saturday Night Live was posting a piece on me that said that my contract wasn’t going to be renewed.

Do you believe that there was any duplicitous strategizing behind announcing then that you weren’t coming back?

Absolutely. No doubt about it. I told the AP reporter, “I had no word that my contract wasn’t going to be renewed, but Saturday Night Live did get word that I’m not doing the show because I won’t perform with Andrew Dice Clay. He’s a misogynist and a gay hater. He’s just not acceptable.”

Who did you voice your objections to that you weren’t going to do the show? Just Al Franken?

Yeah, just Al Franken. I called Lorne on Monday morning too, but I believe he was at a funeral. He didn’t return my call.

What was Franken’s reaction to you saying you wouldn’t do the show?

Franken wasn’t surprised. He actually asked Lorne that week not to have him on the show. He said, “It’s a mistake. He’s divisive, and people are going to turn against us if you keep him on the show.” But it was Lorne who said that he was “an interesting phenomenon worth examining.” I said, “Well, so was Hitler. I’ve been examining him for years. That doesn’t mean I accept him.”

I’ve heard you say that having someone as the host isn’t “examining” them, it’s endorsing them. 

Yes. You’re endorsing them. Sometimes you go, “Okay, we’ve got somebody. They’re not that funny. We will make do,” but you can’t put something like that on.

Now, defenders of Dice and Dice himself have said that his act was a parody. What do you say to that?

I know he says he’s doing a parody, but the laughs are coming because they love that character and they agree with that character. He was Andrew Dice Clay. He was billed as him. He came out as him.

But how does that differ from, say, Archie Bunker, who was a racist character that you could make salient points with?

There was another voice in All in the Family. Archie was challenged all the time. His wife challenged him, and they brought in feminism there. It was more of a discussion. Andrew Dice Clay isn’t a discussion. These guys in the audience, they’re cheering at a joke when he says he sticks his wife’s head in the toilet, fucks her up the ass, pulls out her head and says, “Make me some eggs now,” and everyone cheers and beats on their tables. That’s just not funny.

Why do you think he was so popular at the time?

It was just the times; it was these macho guys fighting back who hated gay guys and they didn’t want women feminizing them and challenging them. This resonated with them.

Why do you think Lorne went forward with him as the host?

I don’t know. I think he didn’t want to admit he was wrong. I think he was very, very upset by the way I did it, which he calls “bad form.” But I did call him, and he did know. I didn’t think that anyone would notice.

Have you ever watched the episode? I did — in preparation for this interview — and I was surprised to find that pretty much every sketch with Dice is about you or references you.

I heard that. I didn’t watch it because it was hurtful.

I grew up in a family with six kids. I went to a tough high school. I’m not some nitwit little white girl from the suburbs, so I can take that. But it was such a betrayal from the cast, and I think they knew that. I think they knew that they did the wrong thing.

Did you expect some of them to join you?

Oh yeah, I did. Phil Hartman came to me, and he apologized. He said, “I didn’t support it. I think we did the wrong thing. I was not engaged in any of those sketches.”

I saw an interview with Andrew Dice Clay at the time, talking about you to Larry King. He was saying that your protest was performative because you were leaving the show and that you never objected to anyone else like, say, Sam Kinison. Now, their acts were very different, but I guess my question is, how do you react to that?

I loved Sam. He was a smart comic. I got along with him very well. I had seen him in clubs, and he wasn’t hateful. Most of his jokes turned on himself. Andrew Dice Clay was so hateful. He was whipping up people by saying, “These f*gs, they deserve to die of AIDS!” and people would pound their tables. One of the good pieces I read on him was saying, “If you listen to a show, people aren’t laughing. They’re pounding on the tables. They’re expressing anger. This is what they’re angry about.”

How was it that Sinéad O’Connor joined you that week in sitting out the show?

Well, I did lie about that. Whenever somebody asked me if I called her or influenced her, I always said no. But really, leading up to the show, her manager called my home and said, “Sinéad doesn’t really know who Andrew Dice Clay is, and she wondered if she could talk to you.” I had this CD, and I said, “You know what? Have a courier take this over to her hotel and let her listen to it and give me a call.” And she did. She called me and she said, “I’m not going to do the show.” I just about burst into tears.

Have you spoken to Lorne since about any of this whole situation?

No. He never spoke to me again.

I did send him flowers at the beginning of the next season, after I wasn’t on anymore. While I was on the show, Lorne would sometimes come up to me and say, “You may be light in the show this week.” And I’d say to him, “We’re always light in the show. We’re women, and the guys don’t write for us.” And so, at the beginning of the next season, I sent him flowers with a card that said, “I understand that I’m going to be light in the show this season.”

He did hire me to do some things. He was the producer on a Seth Rogen movie, and I got word that, “Lorne wants you to do it, but he only wants to pay you $2,500.” And, for the size of the role, it should have been like $25,000. I did it, but it was one of those things like, that’s his little message: “You’re going to come in and work for me for scale.” I also noticed in the credits that I was put last, after every character that could have been a walk-on, and I had a pretty long scene too. That’s the kind of thing that I suspect Lorne of.

I was seated at the 50th anniversary in the last row in the studio. I wasn’t asked to be in anything. And, in the montage of the year that I was on, I was not in it at all.

Do you think that was punishment for what happened 35 years ago?

Absolutely.

Also — I shouldn't be saying this, but what the fuck — I went on the floor afterwards and I ended up standing next to Marty Short watching Paul McCartney sing, and when he finished, we looked at each other and we had tears in our eyes. Then I turned and there’s Lorne standing there. I hadn’t talked to him in years. I went up, and I said, “Lorne Michaels” and hugged him and I said, “Fifty years, good work.” He just said, "Yeah," and he walked away. I went, “Now that’s a petty man.”

More recently, there have been hosts who have been met with some rumored behind-the-scenes objections from the cast, like Dave Chappelle and Donald Trump. I’m curious, how do you feel about them hosting?

With Chappelle, I do think he’s very, very smart, but when I saw that special he did, I was turned off completely. You can’t endorse that. I was really turned off by that, and I don’t think he should have been hired. It’s too bad, though, because I always thought he was great, but then he’s getting on the bandwagon and picking on people in this country who are about two percent of the population. Why are we picking on them? What have they done to you? Why do you say you hate them?

As for Trump, they hired Trump after he came down that escalator. That’s not okay. And, of course, the show was terrible.

Why do you think controversial figures like Trump and Elon Musk and Shane Gillis are asked to be hosts?

It's the ratings. It’s the idea of being cutting edge.

How do you think a cast member should handle it if they pick a host that’s morally objectionable?

I would say don’t do it. Just say, “I’m not doing it.”