Stella Lefty has officially made it to prime-time TV— aka the update desk on Saturnday Night Live.
Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a good SNL skit here and there, but it’ll never fail to amaze me how long internet trends take to finally surface on the hit late-night comedy show. A prime example? Colin Jost and his skit co-star Veronika Slowikowska taking a jab at Stella Lefty’s plagiarism allegations.
The NBC show shared an un-aired clip today that didn’t make it onto the show last Saturday, August 26, where Jost invites Veronika, who portrays “Thefy”— I mean Lefty— to his iconic update desk. He starts off the bit noting how Lefty’s trending song “Boston” charted No.1 on the country charts, despite the claims that she stole the melody from Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season.”
In the real world, Lefty ended up giving Kahan writers credit on the song to clear up any messy legal battles; yet many listeners can’t help but continue to dig into Lefty’s discography and draw comparisons to other hit songs (ie., Blake Shelton’s “I’ll Name The Dogs” and The Dixie Chicks’ “There’s Your Trouble”). Hence why her lingering reputation, paired with her nepo-baby status, has continued to tarnish her public image and has become a topic of discussion on SNL.
In the skit, the 24-year-old Illinois native who’s gone mega-viral as a “country singer” for singing about New England of all places, sits down with Jost to explain her side of the story. She keeps the “uber-authentic” bit going by previewing a few of her other supposedly original songs in the works.
This includes Veronika putting her pipes to good use on renditions of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club,” Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You,” The Bearnaked Ladies’ “One Week,” and the list goes on— including the Harry Potter theme song?
Jost jokes much like a line from a children’s book: “Stella, you’re stealing again.” Lefty even shares with the class her potential album cover art, a spoof on Nirvana’s well-known Nevermind photo, baby p*nis and all.
My personal favorite was her closing rendition of The Lion King’s “Circle of Life,” reworked to fit the Boston theme, of course. At this point, I think I’ve officially reached Stella Lefty fatigue, but as a self-proclaimed song spoofer, I can’t help but think of about 50 other songs that would’ve worked perfectly for the bit and will, in fact, be spending the rest of my day putting the words “Boston” and “train” into every tune.