Maya Rudolph was in a courthouse when Donald Trump’s guilty verdict was announced on Friday. The actress and comedian told Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show that she was attending her daughter’s 8th grade mock trial — at a real courthouse — when the news began to ping across cell phones and she received “all these beautiful, glorious texts.”
“While the fake trial was happening,” Kimmel interjected. Rudolph agreed, to which Kimmel joked, “While another rigged trial was going on.”
Rudolph added that her daughter was playing a police chief solving a murder case when the texts began. “And then the murderer was found not guilty, which is really funny, because it was a real judge and the real judge said, ‘The verdict was not guilty,’” she explained — at which point the judge added, “I think you did it.”
“I was like, I wonder if they do that for real in real cases,” Rudolph added. “‘You’re not guilty — I think you did it.’”
The pair also discussed celebrities Rudolph played on “Saturday Night Live,” including Kamala Harris and Beyoncé. Rudolph came back to the show to play Vice President Harris, which required quick pivots at times. When Biden and Harris won the 2020 election, the costume department at the show “literally whipped me up” a white suit on the spot so she could play Harris in a sketch.
Kimmel also asked Rudolph about her “Hot Ones” impression of Beyoncé, which she’s delivered twice. The comedian said Beyoncé definitely knows about the impression, which she’s deployed in other sketches as well. The real singer was even on set one night when Fred Armisen wrote a sketch that featured Rudolph-as-Beyoncé — which the singer had declined. At the end of the night, the two stood next to one another and “I said, all I said was, ‘I’m so sorry.’ It’s so embarrassing.”
“She knows that my impression is filled with love and how much I love her, but it’s still embarrassing to do anything in front of the person,” Rudolph continued.
Watch the full “Jimmy Kimmel Live” interview with Maya Rudolph in the video above.
