Saturday Night Live recruited Strong talent for its Saturday, May 10, episode — as in Cecily Strong, making her first return to the NBC sketch comedy show since her 2022 departure.
Strong’s cameo came in the episode’s cold open, as James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump said he just appointed “one of the loudest people [he knows]” as the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Fox News star Jeanine Pirro.
The live audience whooped and hollered as Strong made her entrance, impersonating Pirro as she has more than a dozen times before.
“I’m so proud to be part of this group full of Russian assets, boozehounds, and people famous for the little baby animals they’ve killed,” Strong’s Pirro said. “So all you soul sisters and brothers, put the word out on the street. There’s a bad new mama jama laying down the law, getting down in Funkytown, looking fine and sipping wine.”
And speaking of wine, Strong’s friend Colin Jost got a face full of it — repeatedly — as Strong’s Pirro reacted to seeing Jost’s Pete Hegseth, another Fox News personality, with several spit takes.
Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC
Strong joined SNL in Season 37 and left in Season 48, ranking as the show’s longest-running female cast member.
During her time on the show, Strong served as a Weekend Update cohost, and she played characters like Cathy Anne, One-Dimensional Female Character Heather, and The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with at a Party. Her other celebrity impressions on SNL, meanwhile, included Melania Trump, Rachel Maddow, Sofia Vergara, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Strong exited the show in December 2022, with guest host Austin Butler channeling Elvis Presley as he serenaded her.
“I’m sorry I’ve been a little quiet about [the departure] publicly,” she told fans at the time, per Variety. “I didn’t want the extra pressure on something already so emotional for me. And I’m so grateful I got to have these wonderful past six shows to help me ease into it and get to meet and laugh and probably overly hug [new cast members] Molly, Marcello, Devon, and Michael, who I think are not only brilliantly funny but really great humans. I am ready to go, but I’ll always know home is here. I’ve had the time of my life working with the greatest people on earth.”
Saturday Night Live, Saturdays, 11:30/10:30c, NBC