Vanity Fair Under Scrutiny After Editing SNL Star Chloe Fineman’s Story About Pantsing A 6 Y/O

Vanity Fair is facing scrutiny after it edited controversial comments that Saturday Night Live star Chloe Fineman made in one of its videos, about pantsing a child when she was a camp counsellor.

The controversy kicked off late last month when Vanity Fair published a video interview with SNL castmates including Fineman, Mikey Day, Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla, Jane Wickline and James Austin Johnson.

Fineman joined the SNL cast in 2019 for its 45th season. (Image: Getty)

When polling her classmates about a job she’s been fired from, Fineman recalled working as a summer camp counsellor as a 16-year-old and “pantsing a boy” who was six years old at the time.

“He would lift my shirt all the time,” Fineman recalled of the campmate.

“It was a different time. He would be like, ‘Hey, could I have a hug?’ and then I’d go to hug him and he’d lift my shirt, like a dick. I was like, ‘I’m going to get back at you’, and so we were on a hike and I was like, ‘Hey, Ollie, go look over there. It’s a hawk’. He looked and then I yanked his pants down, and then I was fired,” Fineman said.

Fineman copped backlash on social media over the story, with users describing it as “disturbing” and “inappropriate” and even accusing the comedian of “sexual assault”.

“It’s not only weird and creepy that she did this, but then that she told the story like it was no big deal,” one X user wrote.

*The response on social media was swift and loud. (Images: TikTok and X)*

At the height of the controversy, Vanity Fair reportedly removed key details from the story in the original video, including when Fineman mentioned the child’s age and how his “little ding-a-ling was out” after she removed his pants because he wasn’t wearing underwear.

Other moments — like Fineman recalling how a “giant school bus drove by” after the pantsing, as well as her co-stars’ shocked expressions and Padilla saying Fineman is “on a list somewhere” over the story — were also edited out of the video, according to Variety.

Fans were quick to point out the differences in the edited interview compared to the new one, with some taking to social media to call out Vanity Fair for “trying to cover up a clear case of sexual misconduct”.

“Editing it out doesn’t change the fact it raises bigger questions about accountability and what gets brushed off as a joke,” another social media user wrote.