Last week, it was revealed that Ice Cube is not vaccinated. And he has no intention of doing so. He even walked away from a comedy movie, Oh Hell No, opposite Jack Black, which would have netted him both $9 million and a winter shoot in Hawaii. What is he thinking? On this weekend’s Kieran Culkin-hosted SNL, the show’s writing room hazarded a guess as to why.
During Weekend Update, Keenan Thompson swung by as the rap legend and movie star to explain to co-anchor Michael Che why on earth he, like Emilio Estevez, is turning down easy money and paid vacations by refusing to take an FDA-approved vaccine to protect himself from a highly transmissible and deadly virus.
“Hey look, man. I’d just rather be myself than take that vaccine, like you other three billion bozos,” Thompson’s Cube replied. When Che pointed out that he’d “lost” a good gig, Cube disagreed. “Not my loss, your loss. Oh Hell No was going to feature the greatest comedy duo of all time: Ice Cube, Jack Black,” he said. “The comedy chemistry, man. You know what I’m saying?”
He then rattled off a list of all the movies we won’t be getting because Cube won’t take some world-saving medication, from a fourth Barbershop, to a Friday prequel (Thursday, natch), to an M. Night Shyamalan twist-a-thon called Uh Oh, Twist Comin’, which has its own novel twist.
Throughout, Thompson’s Cube avoids the question: Why won’t he get vaccinated. But Che had a theory. “So you’re scared of needles, right?” he asked him, to which Cube replied with a sheepish affirmative.
You can watch the sketch in the video above.