Charli XCX has basically become a regular Saturday Night Live cast member as of late. She was initially supposed to be the musical guest on a December episode, and even though her performance was canceled due to COVID, she still appeared in a sketch as a singing bird. SNL gave Charli another shot at taking the stage this weekend, which she was actually able to do. On top of that, she also popped up in another sketch, this time as an even more peculiar singing character: a meatball growth.
In the sketch, titled “Meatballs,” a woman (played by Sarah Sherman) is hanging out with a romantic interest (Chris Redd), who wonders why she’s always wearing a ribbon around her neck. She hesitantly removes it to reveal a singing “little meatball guy” (Oscar Isaac) on the side of her neck. It turns out she has a variety of strange meatball creatures attached to her body.
The meatballs sing a song together, and after Redd’s character is sufficiently weirded out, he tries to end the relationship. As Sherman’s character starts crying, some sad music starts to play, which turns out to be from Charli’s meatball character, who lives under Sherman’s armpit and plays a keytar. Charli sings an emotional ballad that begins, “Don’t give up on love just because of some meatballs / Don’t give up on this girl because she’s got eleven meatballs.”
The tune won Redd over, who decided to try to make the relationship work. Of course, in classic SNL fashion, the sketch ends on a last-second twist.
Check out “Meatballs” above.
Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.