Ashley Padilla’s viral ‘SNL’ bad haircut sketch was based on a real experience: ‘I looked insane’

Turns out, Ashley Padilla's funny bad haircut sketch on Saturday Night Live was based on a true story.

Padilla, who joined the cast of the show in 2024, explained on Thursday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, that a bit showing her pretending to like her ridiculous new haircut was something she wrote from experience.

Only, in real life, the change several years ago was arguably more dramatic, and it hadn't been made by a trendy beautician, but by Padilla herself.

"I buzzed my head by accident," Padilla confessed, as she held up a photo of herself smiling and bald. "This is me pretending I like it. I'm going, 'I like it! Let's take a selfie.' Why?! No one wants that picture."

Meyers, who was himself an SNL cast member from 2001 to 2014, wanted more details as to how this ever happened.

Well, Padilla recounted, she'd wanted a super cropped not shaved look, like she has now. She was inspired by how cool Caught Stealing actress Zoë Kravitz was with a similar style. She wanted something "tight to my head."

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"And I was like, 'Well, surely you shave it,'" Padilla recalled. "And so I bought a buzzer on Amazon. And I didn't know — I'd never owned one in my life — I didn't know that there are levels. But I found out."
Meyers joked that everyone else knew.

"You could have told me," Padilla said. "I didn't know it."

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At that point, what else could she do but own it?

"I walked around, and I was like, 'This is on purpose!'" Padilla said. "'I like it! With some earrings.' I looked insane."

Padilla also offered a peek into her personal life in October, when she shared a tribute to late actress Diane Keaton, whom she had worked for as an assistant just before joining the iconic Lorne Michaels series. Keaton died Oct. 11 at 79.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.

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