• Colin Jost revealed on The Tonight Show that SNL writers rejected a Hegseth Pulp Fiction bit as “too ridiculous” — then Hegseth actually did it two weeks later.
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recited a prayer at a Pentagon service on April 16 that closely mirrored Samuel L. Jackson’s famous fake Bible verse from the 1994 Tarantino film.
• The Pentagon defended Hegseth, calling it a “custom prayer” used by military rescue crews that was “obviously inspired” by the movie dialogue.
• SNL closes out Season 51 this Saturday with host Will Ferrell and musical guest Paul McCartney.

Sometimes the writers’ room just can’t keep up with real life. Colin Jost stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday and shared a story that pretty much broke his brain — the time Saturday Night Live rejected one of his Pete Hegseth sketch ideas as too far-fetched, only for the actual Secretary of Defense to go ahead and do it anyway.

“We were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens like two months ago,” Jost told Fallon. “And I was like, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that Bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction?’ We talked about it, and we were like, ‘That would be too ridiculous.’ And it would take up all this time in the cold open.”

Then came the kicker.

“And then he for real did it! Like two weeks later!” Jost said. “I was like, the good news is I’m being surveilled, so that’s a relief.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5ABAy38fk%3Fstart%3D130%26feature%3Doembed

Fallon, clearly delighted, played along — even filling in the fake scripture citation himself: “Samuel L. Jackson, 12:17.” Which is not a real book of the Bible, for the record, but at this point nothing feels off-limits.

What Hegseth Actually Said at the Pentagon

The moment in question happened on April 16, when Hegseth delivered what he framed as a combat prayer during a Pentagon service honoring a military rescue mission in Iran. He introduced the passage as “CSAR 25:17” — a riff on the biblical verse Ezekiel 25:17 — and asked the audience to “pray with me please” before launching into a monologue about vengeance, brotherhood, and tyranny.

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth recited. “Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.”

Anyone who’s seen Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic recognized it immediately. The passage is almost verbatim the speech Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield delivers before a killing — itself a fictionalized riff on Ezekiel 25:17, as noted by religion-focused Substack A Public Witness. Hegseth swapped “the righteous man” for “the downed aviator” and added the Sandy 1 call sign at the end, but the bones of the Tarantino monologue were unmistakable.

The clip ricocheted across social media and late-night television almost instantly, with critics questioning how a piece of Hollywood dialogue ended up being solemnly delivered by the sitting Secretary of Defense at an official Pentagon ceremony.

The Pentagon pushed back. Spokesperson Sean Parnell accused critics of “peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” saying Hegseth had recited “a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction.”

Obviously inspired. Sure.

Jost’s Hegseth Era Isn’t Over Yet

Jost has been playing Hegseth in SNL‘s cold opens since he debuted the impression in the Season 51 premiere back in October, and Fallon praised him for “crushing it” in the role. Jost admitted he’d initially worried about being recast when he first fell into the part — which, given how the real Hegseth keeps outdoing any sketch writers could dream up, seems less like a concern now and more like job security.

The season finale airs this Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC, with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney performing as musical guest. Whether Jost gets one more crack at Hegseth before the summer hiatus is the question — though at the rate things are going, the writers might just want to leave the cameras running on C-SPAN and call it a cold open.

The post Colin Jost Says SNL Rejected Hegseth ‘Pulp Fiction’ Joke as ‘Too Ridiculous’ — Then It Actually Happened appeared first on Cream.

• Robert Irwin, 22, revealed he was “death-rolled” by a 14-foot crocodile he named Jimmy Fallon as a baby
• He appeared on The Tonight Show to share the story — directly with the man the croc is named after
• The research technique of jumping on crocodiles was developed by his late father, Steve Irwin
• Robert also discussed his Dancing With the Stars win with partner Witney Carson during the appearance

Robert Irwin has stared down a lot of wild animals in his 22 years, but nothing quite prepared him for the moment a 700-pound crocodile — one he personally named Jimmy Fallon — pinned him to the ground and tried to spin him into oblivion.

The conservationist and Dancing With the Stars winner stopped by The Tonight Show this week and told the story directly to the man the croc is named after. The look on Fallon’s face? Priceless. The story itself? Genuinely terrifying.

“He’s not a baby anymore. I named this crocodile Jimmy Fallon, like, years ago, and he’s now what we call a boss croc. He’s huge,” Robert told the host. The reason he was jumping on a 14-foot crocodile in the first place, he explained, is science — specifically, the kind of hands-on wildlife research his father pioneered. “Because we research crocodiles in the wild to, like, better conserve them, right? So the way you do that — my dad came up with this — is you actually have to jump on them.”

What a Death Roll Actually Means

So Robert jumped. And Jimmy Fallon — the crocodile — did not appreciate it.

“I jumped onto him. I kid you not, 14 foot of crocodile, big croc, death rolls me,” he said. For the uninitiated: a death roll is when a crocodile clamps its jaws on prey and spins its entire body lengthwise with force. It’s how they dismember things. It is not something you want to be on the receiving end of.

“So I’m stuck underneath him with my arm hanging out. I’ve got like, probably — I don’t know — 700 pounds on top of me. And I’m just like, ‘What do I do?’ And luckily he rolled back the other way, and I was fine. But he’s a goer.”

A goer. Classic Robert Irwin.

His Dad’s Legacy, Carried Forward

The fact that Robert is out in the field jumping on crocodiles at all is a direct line back to Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter who died in September 2006 when a stingray’s barb pierced his heart while he was filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Robert was just 2 years old. His sister Bindi was 8.

In the years since, Robert, Bindi, and their mother Terri have kept Steve’s mission alive — running Australia Zoo in Queensland and continuing his conservation work with the same fearless energy he was known for. Robert has been open about what that means to him. “To continue this legacy is the honour of my life,” he wrote on Instagram last October, alongside footage of himself as a child with his father. “If I can make my dad proud, I’ve done my job. Behind everything I do is a conservation mission that my dad started.”

That same drive carried him into the ballroom last fall, when Robert competed on — and won — Dancing With the Stars Season 34 alongside partner Witney Carson. His sister Bindi had won the show back in 2015, making them the only siblings to both take home the mirrorball. During his Tonight Show appearance, Robert also touched on a performance he dedicated to his mom, a moment that clearly meant as much to him as any wildlife encounter.

“Coming over from Australia, I didn’t know how it would go. I didn’t think I’d make it this far, because I didn’t realize how incredibly supportive America would be,” he told Men’s Health in December 2025. “It’s impossible to put into words how much that has meant to me, because what I represent is so much more than just a dance.”

“When I step into the ballroom, I’m representing a legacy that my dad created with my mom. I’m representing everything I stand for, not only as a wildlife conservationist, but also as someone who is working really hard to try and spread some positivity and passion. I want to be a role model for young people.”

And also, apparently, a role model for surviving death rolls from 14-foot crocodiles named after late-night hosts. Jimmy Fallon — the human one — seemed very pleased to have a croc named after him. Even if that croc did try to eat Steve Irwin’s son.

The post Robert Irwin Got Death-Rolled by a 14-Ft. Croc Named Jimmy Fallon appeared first on Cream.