Ariana Grande is gearing up to host the December 20 Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live, with Cher joining her as the musical guest.
The night will mark Cher’s first full musical guest appearance on the show since 1987, when she performed “We All Sleep Alone” and “I Found Someone.”
She’s only appeared in brief cameos since then. Earlier this year, she joined the “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert,” a live event celebrating the show’s 50th anniversary.
On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Grande said the upcoming episode will be “one of the gayest SNL episodes that has ever happened.”
Grande revealed she found out she was hosting before she knew who the musical guest would be. Two days before the announcement went public, she learned it was Cher. “I almost passed out,” she told Fallon, admitting the news hit her completely out of the blue.
On The Tonight Show, Grande also teamed up with Fallon for a performance segment where they breezed through a lineup of iconic duets. They sang “For Good,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Shallow,” “The Boy Is Mine,” and “A Whole New World,” wrapping it all up with “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” — complete with a playful twist on the famous lift.
Grande also talked about filming both Wicked movies, saying that shooting them back-to-back made the entire process feel like one long, continuous journey.
NBC has released the full December lineup leading up to the holiday episode. Melissa McCarthy will host the December 6 show with Dijon as the musical guest. On December 13, Josh O’Connor takes over hosting duties with a performance from Lily Allen.
Grande’s December 20 episode will close out SNL’s 2025 schedule, bringing Cher back to Studio 8H nearly 40 years after her last full musical guest appearance.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
