Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang turned daytime television into a laugh-fest on Thursday with an eyebrow-raising — and entirely comedic — new nickname for Vice President JD Vance: “the pope killer.”
Yang appeared on The View to promote his new romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet, but it was his commentary on politics and SNL impressions that sent the hosts into hysterics.
While chatting about his role on the NBC sketch series — where he famously plays characters like the Titanic’s Iceberg and Vice President Vance — Yang dropped the remark that had the studio in stitches. Referencing Vance’s highly publicized last-minute meeting with Pope Francis just hours before the pontiff’s death on Easter Monday, Yang quipped, “The guy’s a pope killer, okay?”
The comment instantly broke the panel. Whoopi Goldberg turned away from the camera in laughter, declaring, “Someone had to say it!” Co-host Sara Haines jumped in with, “There’s our new headline!” Meanwhile, Joy Behar, ever the voice of comic reason, quickly clarified, “He doesn’t mean it literally — he’s talking spiritually.”
Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at age 88, just one day after briefly meeting with Vance in Vatican City. Vance later told The Hill, “Obviously, when I saw him, I didn’t know that he had less than 24 hours still on this Earth… I think it was a great blessing.”
Yang’s zinger may have been exaggerated satire, but it certainly landed with the audience — and the hosts.
Earlier in the segment, Yang spoke about preparing to play Vance on SNL, confessing, “I thought there would be better people to embody him.” To get it right, Yang said he worked with an accent coach to find a blend “between Ohio and Appalachia.” One host responded, “You nailed it,” to which Yang grinned and responded with the now-viral “pope killer” line.
Of course, Yang was primarily on The View to talk about his latest film The Wedding Banquet, a queer romantic comedy directed by Andrew Ahn. Yang stars as a commitment-phobic man caught in a tangled web of love and immigration schemes, opposite Han Gi-chan, Kelly Marie Tran, and Lily Gladstone. The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, earning rave reviews. Out Magazine praised it as director Ahn’s “career peak” and said, “No other movie moved me or made me laugh more.”
