Colin Jost Says ‘SNL’ Rejected Joke About Pete Hegseth Reading ‘Pulp Fiction’ Bible Verse Two Weeks Before It Happened in Real Life
Colin Jost revealed that he had pitched a joke for 'SNL' about Pete Hegseth reading a Bible verse from 'Pulp Fiction' before it actually happened. The writers rejected the idea, considering it too ridiculous for the show's cold open. Shortly after, Hegseth read the altered verse during a Pentagon prayer service, leading Jost to reflect on the uncanny timing.
- ▪Colin Jost pitched a joke about Pete Hegseth reading a 'Pulp Fiction' Bible verse to the 'SNL' writers.
- ▪The writers deemed Jost's pitch too ridiculous and rejected it.
- ▪Pete Hegseth later read a version of the verse during a Pentagon prayer service, which went viral.
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| Original publisher | Variety |
| Canonical URL | https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/colin-jost-snl-pete-hegseth-pulp-fiction-bible-verse-1236750638/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 09:21:31 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-16T09:40:18.070Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-16T09:40:18.070Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | B8wI7rFG07e_ · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Home TV News May 16, 2026 2:21am PT Colin Jost Says ‘SNL’ Rejected Joke About Pete Hegseth Reading ‘Pulp Fiction’ Bible Verse Two Weeks Before It Happened in Real Life By Zack Sharf Plus Icon Zack Sharf Digital News Director ZSharf Latest John Travolta Cries as Cannes Surprises Him With Honorary Palme d’Or: ‘This Is Beyond the Oscar’ 16 hours ago Matthew McConaughey Exiled Himself From Hollywood and Lived in Peru as Mateo for 22 Days Without Electricity When Fame Became Too Much 21 hours ago Jordana Brewster Wants More Practical Action Scenes and ‘Agency’ in Last ‘Fast and Furious’ Movie, Says Mia Became ‘More Passive’ as Franchise Went On 23 hours ago See All SNL Donald Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth was widely mocked in April after he read a fake Bible verse from Quentin…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Variety.
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