This past weekend, Kacey Musgraves served as the musical guest for Saturday Night Live’s Season 47 premiere. For her first performance of the evening, she played “justified” armed with an acoustic guitar and nothing else. It turns out she wasn’t just faking being nude, as many actors do to abide by FCC regulations, but rather she was completely naked and strategically positioned her body to get away with it — making her the first artist to ever do so on SNL.
First of all, it’s important to clarify that Musgraves wasn’t ditching her outfit for no reason to promote Star-Crossed. While she was fully clothed for her rendition of “camera roll” on SNL, she opted to strip down for “justified” as a reference to the infamous Forrest Gump scene in which Jenny (played by Robin Wright) takes the stage in the nude as “Bobbi Dylan.” Musgraves even tweeted a still of that movie moment to draw the connection for anyone who didn’t get it right away.
In a new interview with Variety, Musgraves’ publicist confirmed that the musician was fully committed to the bare-bones SNL performance. “She was nude,” said the publicist. “Precautions were taken, and this was the first time it’s happened on the show.”
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Reddit users who were allegedly at the dress rehearsal claimed that “people gathered around [Musgraves] with large towels to wrap her so she could stand and walk off stage.” Another user in the audience said that Musgraves was shielded by “a moveable wall” before the “justified” performance and, after she finished performing the song, that same wall was brought back while she dressed into a towel or robe. When speaking with Variety, the singer’s representative confirmed that Musgraves was shielded from the crowd with a sheet before and after the performance.
Staring in January, Musgraves will embark on a US tour in support of Star-Crossed, featuring support from King Princess and MUNA. You can get tickets to the upcoming dates here.
Saturday Night Live’s next episode will be hosted by Kim Kardashian-West and feature Halsey as the musical guest. Other upcoming episodes will feature Rami Malek with Young Thug and Jason Sudeikis with Brandi Carlile.