Michael Che Should Feel Horrible for Awful Simone Biles “Jokes,” but He Won’t

Michael Che is constantly making headlines for the wrong reasons, and this time, it is because fans of Saturday Night Live want Che gone after making truly vile “jokes” about Simone Biles. The “Weekend Update” host took to his Instagram story to declare that he didn’t care what everyone was saying and he wanted to make fun of Olympic athlete Simone Biles after she withdrew from competition.

“Man, I wanna make fun of Simone Biles,” he posted on his Instagram story, mainly in reference to the internet’s discussion on leaving Simone Biles alone. “I got like 3 mins of Simone Biles jokes in my head. I’m going to the [Comedy Cellar] tonight to say them into a microphone. As the dorky kids say I’m choosing violence.”

Che shared some jokes in his story, one of which read as follows: “Larry Nasser (sic) understands Simone Biles better than anyone. He too had to quit doing what he loved at the pinnacle of his career because of mounting pressure.” Che called it tasteless and then gave it a 9/10 rating.

The Nassar joke is the one that everyone is talking about, as they should. Larry Nassar sexually assaulted hundreds of gymnasts while being the national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics, one of which was Olympian Simone Biles. Che’s need to “make fun of her” is already a problem regardless of that fact, but the reasoning behind Biles’ dropping out of the Olympics came from Biles taking care of her mental health and wellbeing. So Che deciding that this was perfectly fine to make fun of her? Absolutely disgusting.

Che shared a good amount of these terrible jokes and then, when he saw the backlash, said that he was hacked and claimed he only joked about “whites and cops.” The thing is: This is Che’s style, and he does it over and over again. He punches down, he finds someone he feels like he can make fun of and no one will say anything, and then when people call him out, he lashes out—mainly because most of his “punching down” comes at the expense of women and trans individuals.

There was absolutely no reason for Che to make a comment on Simone Biles.

Yet again, Che trended on Twitter, and as per usual, you probably shouldn’t have even bothered to ask why people were talking about him.

I would say I hope that Che learns from this, but he won’t, if time has shown us anything. Hopefully HBO and NBC do learn something from this, though, and finally do something about Che’s incredibly harmful jokes.

(via Mediaite, image: Jennifer Graylock/Getty Images for Gilda’s Club NYC)

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Rachel Leishman

Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.

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