Trisha Paytas makes her ‘SNL’ debut in a surprise appearance

YouTuber Trisha Paytas used to be a divisive figure on the internet, but she’s made major changes recently, and some of her dreams are coming true. A lifelong Wicked fan, she attended the premiere of the movie in Los Angeles, and now she has lived out one of her biggest fantasies: appearing on Saturday Night Live.

Last night’s episode, hosted by Gladiator II star Paul Mescal, featured Paytas making a surprise SNL debut in a sketch making fun of Mescal’s idiosyncratic musical tastes. The scene features a group of friends discussing their Spotify Wrapped year-end picks. Mescal shocks his friends by listing an unknown, Satoshi Gutman, as his favorite artist. Mescal’s character describes Gutman, played by Bowen Yang, as an “anti-instrumentalist sound guru out of Dundalk, Md.” and says he has spent 170,000 minutes listening to him.

The friends look puzzled, so Mescal shows them a clip from his podcast, “Awakenings,” featuring Paytas as an “iconic guest.” Paytas and Gutman then appear in the friends’ living room, because as she explains, “Me and my king Satoshi were walking in the area.” She greets the friends, addressing them as “bastards” and they agree that the best “bacy” is celibacy. Then the group ends the sketch by dancing to Gutman’s top hit, which includes the line, “I was normal, but then y’all made me celibate.”

At the end of the show, Mescal gave a shout-out to Paytas for appearing in the episode.