While Ben Marshall has been appearing on Saturday Night Live for years, he didn’t become a full cast member until Season 51. Now, as the show has been airing on the 2025 and 2026 TV schedules, and he's gotten more airtime, he’s started doing something in his sketches over and over again. That thing is not wearing a shirt and/or putting himself in situations where his shirt needs to be taken off, and Seth Meyers called him out for it. However, the comedian had a great response prepared.
When Marshall appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host took a moment to point out the fact that the SNL cast member has been shirtless in sketches at least three times during Season 51. Calling out the pattern, he noted that those things are written into the show. While Marshall claimed he didn’t know what was going on with this pattern, he also quipped:
I did write those. However, yeah, it's the writers’ fault.
Well, I guess the person to blame here is the writer…Ben Marshall. Truly, this is the best response he could have had. I love that he both admitted to writing these sketches and attempted to place the blame on the writer (which, again, was him). And yes, I do think it’s made better by the fact that he was wearing a snow suit while explaining all this.
Marshall's joke didn’t stop there either, because when he posted the clip of this conversation from Late Night on his Instagram, he wrote:
The writers have been exploiting me.
Considering he’s the one writing these, I think Marshall might enjoy being exploited. Plus, the sketches Meyers mentioned have been super funny.
Specifically, Heated Wizardry -- which was a sketch about what might happen if Heated Rivalry happened at Hogwarts (don’t worry, Daniel Radcliffe was warned about it) -- really got audiences laughing. And considering the steamy nature of gay hockey romance that millions have binged with an HBO Max subscription, it makes sense that the Please Don’t Destroy boy found himself shirtless during the sketch.
All around, Marshall has been having a solid first season. He was one of five new stars added to SNL amid the massive shakeup that happened before Season 51. It was a big step for him, too, considering it came after he spent five years writing for the show as one-third of Please Don’t Destroy. Now, he’s proving to be a very entertaining (and often shirtless) on-air personality.
Now, to see if Ben Marshall keeps this pattern of not wearing a shirt up, you can catch this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live on its titular night at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC or with a Peacock subscription. Notably, Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie is hosting…So, I wouldn’t be surprised if Seth Meyers ends up with another shirtless photo that he can use to call the comedian out with.
