“Saturday Night Live” has set Billie Eilish and Paul Rudd as the hosts of its final shows of 2021, NBC announced Thursday.
While Eilish will make her hosting debut on the sketch series (she was previously on “SNL” as musical guest), Rudd is joining the Five-Timers Club with this Studio 8H gig.
Eilish will host “Saturday Night Live” on Dec. 11 and appear as her own musical guest. She will be promoting her sophomore album, “Happier Than Ever,” which launched at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
On Dec. 18, Rudd will host “SNL,” marking his fifth time doing the job. Right now, Rudd is making the rounds to talk up his new movie “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” which hits theaters Friday, and Apple TV+’s “The Shrink Next Door.”
Charli XCX will be Rudd’s musical guest. This will be the second time the singer, who releases her second album, “Crash,” March 18, has performed on “SNL.”
This Saturday, Simu Liu will be hosting the show and accompanied by musical guest Saweetie. “SNL” will then take a few weeks off before returning with Eilish as host in the second week of December.
“SNL” saw a ratings bump last weekend with Jonathan Majors as host and Taylor Swift as musical guest. OK, it’s clear the rise from the week before wasn’t so much about Majors, who did a fine job as a debut host, as it was about Swift’s performance.
The Grammy winner sang a 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” the fan-favorite breakup track widely assumed to be about actor Jake Gyllenhaal, which Swift extended for the newly released “Red (Taylor’s Version)” album.
The Nov. 13 episode featuring Swift and Majors earned a 1.37 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.8 million total viewers, making it the third-highest rated and third-most watched episode of the currently airing 47th season of “SNL.”
The No. 1 slot for the season goes to the Oct. 9 episode hosted by Kim Kardashian West and featuring musical guest Halsey, which got a 1.65 rating and 6.5 million viewers.
The second-place titleholder is the Oct. 23 “SNL,” hosted by former “SNL” cast member Jason Sudeikis with Brandi Carlile as musical guest. That episode got a 1.49 demo rating and 6 million viewers.
“Saturday Night Live” is executive produced by creator Lorne Michaels. The NBC sketch show is produced in association with Broadway Video.