Woody Harrelson Responds to Backlash Over SNL Monologue Criticizing Covid Vaccine Mandate

Speaking with Esquire, the actor was asked whether any of the backlash or controversy revolving around his opening speech ever got back to him in the months since, as someone who isn't all that online.

"Well, people told me it was, shall we say, trending. No, I don't look at that s---," he told the publication. "I feel like, 'I said it on SNL.' I don't need to go further with it ... other than to say—well, no, I won't. Never mind. That's enough."

"But it don't change my life one bit," he added. "Not one bit, if the mainstream media wants to have a go at you, right? My life is still wonderful."

In case you missed it, Harrelson hosted the snow back in February and sparked headlines when he decided to take aim at Covid vaccine mandates during his monologue. He spent much of his rambling speech talking about the "craziest script" he's ever read, a bit which included some conspiracy theories about vaccination.

"So the movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over," he said.

"I threw the script away," Harrelson concluded. "I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day."

Speaking more generally about the internet with Esquire, Harrelson said he doesn't ever read it. "It's like when reviews come out for movies. I don't look," he said, before explaining how bad it was for his psyche the one time he did read one for a play he did back in the day.

"I was in this play in San Francisco with Sean Penn in 2000. At one point, I was stretching in the place that I was renting there and there was an LA Times, and it had a picture of me and Sean on stage. I'd only been hearing, 'Oh my God, the critics just love you! You're going to be so psyched!'" he recalled. "Well, it just so happened that the paper was open to the review, and I started reading it. Oh, it just went after me. It f---ed me up for at least two, three performances. It's a poison pill."

Read Harrelson's full Esquire interview -- alongside his "White House Plumbers" costar Justin Theroux -- right here.