‘SNL’ Criticized After Airing Tiger Woods Domestic Violence Skit While Rihanna On Show

“Saturday Night Live” is making headlines for featuring a skit over the weekend, which parodied domestic violence.

On Saturday night’s episode, the NBC sketch comedy show made light of Tiger Woods’ scandalous week, satirizing reports – denied by the golfer – that his wife, Elin Nordegren, attacked him prior to his early-morning car accident on November 27 with a sketch featuring Keenan Thomson and host Blake Lively.

However, the show’s musical guest was Rihanna – a victim of domestic violence earlier this year from then-boyfriend Chris Brown — prompting concerns from several media outlets that the show’s humor was insensitive from some corners.

“It was another sketch that gave us pause,” noted PopEater in an article titled “‘SNL’ Lampoons Alleged Violence in Tiger Woods’ Marriage,” on Sunday. “We think, had the genders been reversed, ‘SNL’ wouldn’t make light of the potentially violent situation.”

Female-oriented site Jezebel called the sketch one of the show’s “obvious missteps… when you consider that Rihanna was the night’s musical guest.”

While over on The TV Squad blog, a writer called out the Rihanna connection.

“As soon as this sketch started, I immediately thought, ‘Oh, no! Stop the sketch! Rihanna might see,’” adding, “Had the tables been turned and a man was suspected of beating up his wife, there definitely wouldn’t be a lighthearted sketch like this. But since it’s female-on-male domestic violence, our current culture deems it kind of, sort of okay to make fun of and the scandal had to be addressed before it lost heat.”

And commenters on sites including Entertainment Weekly and The Huffington Post also raised their voices over the sketch.

“The Tiger Woods sketch was terrible. Domestic abuse is NOT funny. It was even more awkward since Rihanna was there,” a commenter named Lindsey noted on EW.com.

“Emotional and Physical violence is toxic and not funny,” thelipstickfemme wrote on TheHuffingtonPost.com.