Cecily Strong, a key member of "Saturday Night Live" over the past eleven seasons, bid a tearful goodbye during the show's December 17 episode. Appearing in the cold open as MAGA news personality and fiancé to Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Strong kicked off her final episode in traditional fashion, by helping to make fun of Trump.
The cold open starts off as a "special Christmas announcement," with standard holiday imagery fading into a graphic of James Austin Johnson as Trump in all his laser beam eyed "superhero" glory.
"This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time," Johnson as Trump says after the NFT graphics move off the screen. "You may have seen this week, I made a major announcement. I'm doing my first official collection of Donald J. Trump digital trading cards . . . they feature incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career. For example, when I was an astronaut. Or me riding a big elephant." Other cards are shown depicting Trump as a cowboy, and of him using his laser beam eyes to melt Biden's ice cream cone.
Johnson as Trump goes on to joke about how the cards were widely viewed as a scam, charging $99 for something that could easily just be looked at online, and then calls on his "third least embarrassing child," Donald Trump Jr. (played by SNL's Mikey Day) to provide further info.
"So good to be here for the launch of this amazing, totally legit product," says Day as Trump Jr. "These cards are fantastic. And a steal. And I know what you're thinking, '$99!? You can get two grams for that!' While I'm here, I also wanted to share, I'm selling a Christmas CD from my fiancé, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
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Beckoning Strong as Guilfoyle, she receives hoots and cheers from the audience before launching into a sales pitch for her CD, "Now That's What No One Calls Music."
Strong joined SNL in 2012 and is departing on good terms to focus on other projects. Most recently, Strong was performing in "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," a play written by Jane Wagner and originally performed by her longtime partner and friend of SNL, Lily Tomlin.
Watch Strong in her final cold open for SNL here:
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