Scarlett Johansson has spoken out about a shocking joke that her husband Colin Jost told about her during a special episode of Saturday Night Live towards the end of last year.

For SNL’s annual Christmas episode in December, the comedian and his Weekend Update co-host Michael Che prepared near-the-knuckle jokes for one another to read out live on air, which they were not allowed to see ahead of time.

During Colin’s section, he was given several outrageous jokes about Scarlett to read out live on air – which he delivered while she watched on from backstage.

“Scarlett just celebrated her 40th birthday, which means I’m about to get up out of there,” read one joke, while another – which we’ll spare you the precise details of – left Scarlett visibly stunned when Colin compared one part of his wife’s anatomy to a particular meat dish.

In a new interview with InStyle, the two-time Oscar nominee confirmed that neither she nor Colin had been able to see the jokes ahead of time, so her reactions were genuine.

She recalled: “It was so vulgar. I just can’t believe that they went there.

“I was like – it was so gross. It was really gross,” Scarlett added with a laugh. “And, like, old-school gross.”

The former Marvel star claimed she had been given a tip-off that a “vagina joke” was part of the routine, but didn’t realise it would involve her specifically.

“I was like, ‘I mean, it’s a vagina joke, how bad could it be?’ And then as soon as the Costco photo came up, I was like ‘No! No, Michael!’.

“The fact that it took on a full To Catch a Predator-style reveal or whatever, that was so intense. All of a sudden, it was like a whole bunch of people holding up lights, and a guy with a video camera. They were waiting for me to react. I felt insane. I was like, ‘I think I’m going to faint’.”

Scarlett added that she and Colin finally made it home to bed at about four in the morning, both feeling that their “nerves” were “shot”.

Back in January, Colin claimed during an interview on The Tonight Show that the joke had landed him “in trouble” with both Scarlett and “a lot” of other people.

“Scarlett was genuinely so shocked,” he insisted.

Colin and Scarlett have been married since 2020, and have a son, who was born in August 2021.

The Lost In Translation star also has a 10-year-old daughter from her previous relationship with art dealer Romain Dauriac.