Saturday Night Live Weekend Update co-host Michael Che is standing by his opinion that Boston “the most racist city” he’d ever visited. But the stand-up comedian also wants Bostonians to know he loves them anyway.

Just like his he loves his “racist” grandma.

Here’s how it all went:

Che made the original remarks during a pre-Super Bowl episode of SNL. The Manhattan-born, New York-based comic joked that he wanted to unplug from politics during the big game and “watch the blackest city in America beat the most racist city I’ve ever been to.”

The joke (which can be viewed above at the 5:17 mark) was picked up by WEEI at the time, but otherwise garnered little media coverage. It’s likely that most Boston media outlets were a bit preoccupied that Sunday.


However, Che’s comments resurfaced after he did stand up Thursday at Boston University and recalled how his comments resulted in a lot of angry responses on social media. As The Boston Globe reported Friday, the comedian said he stood by his original comments and incorporated the backlash into his routine. Per the Globe:

Che said he received a lot of angry messages on social media after making the statement, including one from a woman who was particularly upset. But rather than explaining himself, Che said, he responded with this: “Talk to your closest black friend and ask them to explain it to you.” To which she responded: “Touche.” … Che said he never apologizes for his language or controversial statements because “I’m just trying to be more presidential.”

The Globe‘s story was subsequently aggregated by a number of other media outlets and became a hot topic of debate on social media.

On Saturday, Che took notice of the attention his comments were getting and joked on Instagram: “lol those boston university kids tattled on me to the media? ? yea, i said it. boston is racist.”

He followed up with another post Saturday — a screenshot photo of one of the Globe’s tweets of the story — in which he explained he loves Boston like he loves his racist grandma.

“Listen boston, my grandma is racist too, but i still love her. & i still love you,” he wrote.

According to his earlier Instagram post, Che is scheduled to appear at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre in June.