SNL alum Ana Gasteyer recently shared an unforgettable memory from her time on Saturday Night Live involving disgraced rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. During her guest appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast on November 20, the comedian recalled a high-profile musical guest’s appearance in May 1998 and the unexpected humour that unfolded behind the scenes.
Gasteyer, a cast member on SNL from 1996 to 2002, described, “Of course, like, [Diddy] shut down the whole building.”
“You can tell like the five a**h***s in the six years that I was there when they would be like, ‘So and so is in the building, everybody stay in your dressing rooms,’ ”Gasteyer explained, noting that such restrictions seemed excessive.
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“Which is applicable if you’re a presidential candidate. But apart from that, really, it’s my house. For P. Diddy, he demanded a totally closed set.”
Gasteyer recounts Will Ferrell’s epic prank on Diddy
The Wine Country actress recounted the events leading up to Will Ferrell’s now-infamous prank during Combs’ rehearsal of his song “Come With Me,” a 1998 hit that sampled Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” The prank was conceived during a writers’ meeting, where someone jokingly suggested that Ferrell, in character as “Ron,” should crash the performance.
“He went on down the stairs, and he marched right in,” Gasteyer said. “And I have the video from the control room where Sean Combs is rapping with like, ‘Da-na-na, da-na-na, da-na-na, da-na-na’ behind him. And Ron’s walking around, looking really disoriented [still in character].”
While the prank delighted the SNL cast, Gasteyer admitted that Puff did not share the humour. “[Combs] really did not roll with it. He was very uncomfortable, but it was also just like, the artifice of all that faux importance,” she said, poking fun at the dramatic energy surrounding the performance.
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Ferrell himself has corroborated the story back in a 2020 interview with Vulture, “Someone said, ‘Ron should go up onstage,’ and before everyone turned to see, I had sprinted out the door.”