I’m not sure you know this, but putting Saturday Night Live together, and making sure that each live sketch written over the space of a week (that made the cut) and then subsequently performed over the course of ninety-minutes goes just right, requires a ton of planning and practice (even if the sketches aren’t funny). It all must fall exactly into place, everyone must hit their marks, everything must be timed down to the second. So of course, this past weekend’s musical guest Rihanna called in “sick” to dress rehearsals at the very last minute, and then acted completely fine when she actually showed up. This, of course, went over totally fine with everyone on the show. HA! Just kidding. Everyone hates her now. Via TMZ:
Rihanna was a no-show for her final rehearsal for Saturday Night Live — which did not sit well with the show’s producers, including head man Lorne Michaels … TMZ has learned.
According to our sources, RiRi called in sick for the dress rehearsal, which is done live in front of a studio audience right before the actual show. We’re told Michaels takes dress rehearsals very seriously and was quite upset when Rihanna bailed at the last minute. Our sources say that in her place, Rihanna’s choreographer danced to her songs. When Rihanna showed up later looking just fine, we’re told the staff was shocked … and felt she didn’t appear sick enough to have missed the dress rehearsal … though no one from the show called her on it.
According to our sources, once the live show got going, Rihanna was seen eating an apple and walking around in between songs … which bothered several staffers because she did not seem ill at all. We’re told producers can’t even remember the last time someone has skipped the dress rehearsal.
Saturday Night Live is one of the most finely tuned machines ever, and requires everyone who works on the show to work together and put in ungodly hours for the sake of making good television. Calling in sick to a dress rehearsal, which is put on for the purpose of ensuring that everything runs together well and the show doesn’t run too long or too short, is a prime way to make everyone involved hate you.