Saturday Night Live’s 44th season Premiere: Kanye West appears as a Perrier bottle and Matt Damon channels Brett Kavanaugh

Saturday Night Live‘s 44th season premiered last night with statement performances from Kanye West as Perrier and Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh.

Kanye West sang as a Perrier bottle. (Image source: Twitter/TeamKanyeDaily)

Matt Damon also made a surprise appearance during the show. (Image source: Twitter/Alyssa Milano)

West was the musical guest on the show, appearing as a blown-up Perrier bottle along with rapper Lil Pump who appeared as a Fiji water bottle. The pair performed their song I Love It, most of which was censored and bleeped out due to the rules of the show.

The eccentric outfits, while not completely out of character for Ye anyway, were a play on the music video outfits. The song is on Lil Pump’s Harverd Dropout album. Adele Givens gave the spoken word at the start of the performance in full form.

.@kanyewest and @lilpump perform "I Love It" in Studio 8H. #SNLPremiere pic.twitter.com/rZgvkzdvnX
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) September 30, 2018

What. Is. Kanye. West. Doing. #SNL pic.twitter.com/vzezUTHWKx
— mcbc (@mcbc) September 30, 2018

Kanye West on SNL right now pic.twitter.com/2CF7YtdVTU
— erictacular (@erictacular) September 30, 2018

“Ladies and gentleman, Kanye West.”
Me: #SNL pic.twitter.com/ikVdQuWuqg
— Matthew (@MRisingStar18) September 30, 2018

Either I accidentally dropped some acid, or Kanye West dropped a few unbleeped f-bombs on #snl while dressed as a bottle of Perrier. pic.twitter.com/Fen3Qpvgih
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) September 30, 2018

After his performance, West also apparently gave a bold speech in favor of Donald Trump, which was cut out by the show when the speech ran into ending credits.

SNL just cut off Kanye West – here is the rest of his performance.
. pic.twitter.com/0EHXLSVAeD
— #WeAreAllBrettKavanaugh (@Military4Trump) September 30, 2018

West stepped in as the musical guest in place of Ariana Grande, who was originally scheduled to perform but dropped out last minute for ’emotional reasons’. Before his SNL appearance, West tweeted out “The being formally known as Kanye West…I am Ye.” West did not clarify whether he is permanently changing his stage name to Ye or whether he is just referring to his moniker on social media.

Image source: Twitter/Ye

West also said on Thursday that he would be dropping a new album Yandhi during SNL. He gave a shoutout to his friend Lil Wayne’s album The Carter V on Twitter beforehand, saying, “we’re releasing Yandhi Saturday night We know it will come in number 2 to my brother Lil Wayne and that’s lovely The universe needs Ye and Wayne music at the same time.”

Image source: Twitter/Ye

West’s eccentric performance was one of many notable parts of the premiere. Matt Damon also showed up during the show’s cold open as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Matt Damon appeared as Brett Kavanaugh. (Image source: Twitter/Leslie Jones)

Welcome to Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination hearing. #SNLPremiere pic.twitter.com/RYhKNbroM5
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) September 30, 2018

By recreating his testimony, the show poked fun at Kavanaugh’s heated hearing and even at his excessive consumption of water.

Damon as Kavanaugh said, “You want a real investigation, then just look at my — look at my calendars. You’re going to see that every night I was lifting weights with PJ and Squee and Handsy Hank and Gang-bang Greg. But you know the liberal media is going to find some way to spin this.”

A cardboard cutout of Alyssa Milano also appeared a few times during the skit.

"Next question, did you ever drink too many beers?” – Senator Amy Klobuchar (@TheRealDratch) #SNLPremiere pic.twitter.com/2U2GcU9i6r
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) September 30, 2018