23-year-old rapper Roddy Ricch will not be making this Saturday Night Live debut this week. He has revealed on his Instagram Stories that he has been exposed to COVID-19. Reports say that he will be replaced by pop band Bleachers.
Ricch is best known for his hit singles Die Young, The Box and High Fashion. The Compton-born rapper was also featured on Nipsey Hussle’s award-winning single Racks in the Middle.
Roddy Ricch will not be performing on SNL
Ricch broke the devastating news to his fans through a text post on his Instagram Story.
On January 12 he wrote, “Due to recent COVID-19 exposure on my team and to keep everyone safe I won’t be able to perform on SNL this weekend.”
The rapper continued to express, “I’m working with the SNL team to lock in a new date though! LOVE [prayer hands emoji] STAY SAFE.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that a musical guest has had to back out of their SNL musical performance due to COVID-19. Country singer Morgan Wallen found himself under scrutiny after he was caught breaking the sketch show’s safety protocols. However, the show ended up generously inviting him back to perform a few months later.
COVID struck the set again when their Christmas episode was halted due to an on-set spread. The episode ended up not being performed live and host Paul Rudd was left with an empty audience.
The Bleachers are slated to replace him
In place of Ricch, I Wanna Get Better band Bleachers has been slated to replace him. This indie-pop band is led by music producer Jack Antonoff, best known for his collaborations with Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. This will be Bleachers’ first time performing on SNL.
SNL announced this change with a graphic on their social media pages, showing the band’s name listed underneath host Ariana DeBose (West Side Story).
While the band released a new album in 2021 called Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, they are currently planning a tour dedicated to their first two studio albums — Strange Desires and Gone Now.
They wrote on Instagram, “we’ve got something very special to share … this march we’ll be performing two shows dedicated to ‘strange desire’ on 3/24 + ‘gone now’ on 3/25. playing both these albums in full.” They continued, “we’ll have tour exclusive music / merch for these shows only.”
Ariana DeBose hosts SNL on January 15, featuring musical guest Bleachers.