Melissa McCarthy lit up Studio 8H this weekend, returning to Saturday Night Live for the sixth time — and viewers couldn’t help but notice her striking new look.
The two-time Oscar nominee kicked off the night in a fitted black velvet jumpsuit with jeweled shoulders before getting hilariously wiped out by an over-the-top fake snowstorm during her monologue.
Fans quickly jumped on X to rave about the Bridesmaids star.
“Melissa McCarthy! Oh my!! I’ve had a crush on her forever,” one person wrote. “I had no idea she had lost this much weight. Still crushing!”
“So Glad to see Melissa McCarthy Back on the SNL Stage, and She Looks Fabulous,” another added.
“Melissa McCarthy is literally snatched for this monologue,” a third declared.
“Melissa McCarthy looks amazing! That monologue was so fun,” said a fourth.
McCarthy’s monologue started innocently enough, with her asking the crew for “a little Christmas magic.”
“So how about we put a little bit of snow to get us in the holiday mood?” she said. “This is SNL, don’t be stingy with the snow!”
But that request quickly escalated into a blizzard as a mountain of faux snow dumped onto her. “Okay, that was way too much!” she shouted, shaking it off before continuing.
Her appearance comes months after Barbra Streisand accidentally stirred up online drama by commenting on McCarthy’s Instagram photo and asking whether she was taking Ozempic. McCarthy later brushed off the backlash with good humor.
“The takeaway — Barbra Streisand knows I exist? She reached out to me. And she thought I looked good. I win the day,” she wrote.
Streisand later clarified she only meant to compliment her: “She looked fantastic! I just wanted to pay her a compliment. I forgot the world is reading!”
McCarthy has long been candid about her relationship with weight and self-image. In 2015, she told CBS Mornings: “I finally said [to myself], ‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop worrying about it,’ and it may be the best thing I’ve ever done.
“I truly stopped worrying about [my weight]. I stopped over-analyzing, over-thinking, over-doing anything.”
She continued, “I just stopped constantly being worried about it, and I think there’s something to kinda loosening up and not being so nervous and rigid about it that, bizarrely, has worked.”
As for the rest of the season, SNL has two more episodes left in 2025. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery star Josh O’Connor will host on December 13 with Lily Allen as musical guest. The year wraps on December 20 when Ariana Grande hosts and Cher returns to the show for the first time since 1987.
Season 51 has already featured six hosts, including Bad Bunny, Amy Poehler, Sabrina Carpenter, Miles Teller, Nikki Glaser and Glen Powell.