The Emmy Award winner donned a four-leafed clover on her t-shirt as she introduced Saturday’s musical guest, Jennifer Lopez.
Edebiri, who stars as Sydney in the hit show first became known as ‘Irish’ when she joked that she had played the beloved Jenny the Donkey in The Banshees of Inisherin during an interview with Letterboxd at last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival.
Ayo Edebiri as Jenny the Donkey
Since then, the Boston-born actress, who has one Nigerian parent and one parent from Barbados, has been adopted by the Irish public and is fully embracing the now long-running joke.
Last year, Edebiri, with no traceable Irish links tweeted about the release of her film Bottoms, writing, “Bottoms is out rn in the UK & my home nation of Ireland.”
During the Emmy Awards, which saw her win Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, she jokingly said to a reporter: “Shout out to my people, shout out to Derry, shout out to Cork, shout out to Killarney, shout out to Dublin.”
Last month, on January 14, she thanked her family in Nigeria, Barbados and Ireland, after winning a critic’s choice award for her role in The Bear.
The Bear star Ayo Edebiri shouts out Ireland during her acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Award
Since then, the Irish public have labelled her as ‘Ireland’s princess Irish queen’ as well as an ‘Irish national treasure’ as she continues to play along with the joke.
Last night, the 28-year-old actress introduced Jennifer Lopez on Saturday Night Live, wearing a white t-shirt with a green shamrock and her first name Ayo printed on the front of it.
It comes following previous tension between the actress and the 54-year-old JLO, which saw Edebiri describe the iconic singer’s musical career as “scam” on a podcast she appeared on in 2020.
Edebiri addressed the previous controversial remarks in one of her sketches last night which centred around comments made by online trolls.
“But I think I speak for everyone when I say from now on, we’re going to be a lot more thoughtful about what we post online,” she said in the skit.
This was Edibri’s debut as Saturday Night Live host.
