Logo

NBC’s Brian Williams Blasts Performance by ‘SNL’ Musical Guest — ‘One of the Worst Outings in ‘SNL’ History’ — Triggering Damage Control Effort by Network PR Team

Jan 17, 2012  •  Post A Comment

In a message that was apparently meant to be private but ended up going public, NBC anchor Brian Williams criticized a performance by "Saturday Night Live" musical guest Lana Del Rey, Gawker reports.

Williams said in an email to Gawker founder Nick Denton that he wished the website had covered the singer’s performance on the NBC show.

"Brooklyn hippster [sic] Lana Del Rey had one of the worst outings in SNL history last night — booked on the strength of her TWO SONG web EP, the least-experienced musical guest in the show’s history, for starters," Williams wrote in the email, according to a story on the website.

The site later posted an update featuring this email from NBC’s PR team: “Can you please have the post of Brian Williams’ email to Nick Denton taken down immediately? That was sent in confidence as friends and absolutely never intended to be public. A speedy removal would go a long way in maintaining the trust and respect we have for your site.”

Del Rey is one of only a few artists to appear on "SNL" ahead of the U.S. release of their debut album, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

8 Comments

  1. I didn’t think Miss Del Rey’s performances were good by any means…but no worse than Florence + the Machine, Radiohead and Maroon 5. But again, I’m not in their demo.

  2. I agree with Williams that this was one of the worst musical guests I had ever seen on SNL. I usually look forward to the music on the show, even when it is something a little off-beat, but this performance was horrible.

  3. Sure, Radiohead is hard to watch, but has a huge following, as do Maroon 5 and Florence + the Machine. Lana Del Ray, on the other hand, was just bad. Sorry that Brian Williams is caught up in the emperor’s new clothes, but to paraphrase the ‘every microphone is a live microphone’ saying, every private tweet is a public tweet.

  4. In my opinion, Brian Williams’ assessment was dead on accurate.
    Now the real issue is why did Denton release the so called “personal” email?

  5. Just watched the clip of her performing “Video Games”. Not sure if we’re watching the same performance. Was it the most exciting performance ever on SNL? No, but it’s a haunting ballad and I enjoyed the performance quite a bit. If this style of vocalist isn’t your thing, fine. But there was absolutely nothing wrong with this. (It’s not like Ashley Simpson, who was lip-syncing and just stopped performing. Now THAT was a bad performance.)

  6. Just watched the clip of her performing “Video Games”. Not sure if we’re watching the same performance. Was it the most exciting performance ever on SNL? No, but it’s a haunting ballad and I enjoyed the performance quite a bit. If this style of vocalist isn’t your thing, fine. But there was absolutely nothing wrong with this. (It’s not like Ashley Simpson, who was lip-syncing and just stopped performing. Now THAT was a bad performance.)

  7. Another example of how the effort to cover it up has made it into a much bigger story than it ever would have been. This was a local NYC story and now it is National.

  8. I didn’t watch SNL this week but I’ll definitely check out this performance. As one of the people who discovered Kate Bush thanks to a “loved it or hated it” performance on SNL, I’m willing to check this out. Ironically, Williams may wind up helping this artist get more exposure due to curious people like me who wouldn’t have even known about them otherwise.

Leave a Reply to Doug Cancel Reply

Email (will not be published)