'Champions' star Woody Harrelson: SNL monologue controversy caps storied personal journey

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Woody Harrelson made a rare red carpet appearance with his family at the premiere of his new movie, "Champions," in New York City.

The 61-year-old actor was joined by his wife, Laura Louie, 55, and their daughters, Deni, 30, and Makani, 16, as he attended the event at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Monday night. The pair, who have been married since 2008, also share daughter Zoe, 26.

The "Triangle of Sadness" star tends to keep his family life out of the spotlight and has only made a handful of red carpet appearances with his wife and daughters in the past. For this outing, Harrelson was all smiles, with the foursome all beaming and posing for the cameras. 

Harrelson's family night comes after he made waves with the controversial "Saturday Night Live" monologue that he delivered while hosting the NBC comedy sketch series last weekend.

The Texas native sparked backlash online when he appeared to poke fun at COVID-19 vaccines during his opening monologue.

After joking about his frequent use of marijuana, conflicting political views as a "redneck hippie" and division in America, Harrelson closed out his monologue by recounting a movie pitch he allegedly read in 2019 that he called the "craziest" he’s ever heard. 

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"So the movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over," Harrelson said. 

"I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day."

At the end of the show, Harrelson, who hosted for the fifth time on Saturday, was inducted into "SNL"s Five-Timers Club. The club consists of celebrities who have hosted "SNL" five or more times and its membership includes Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Sting and Drew Barrymore among others.

Scarlett Johansson, who is herself a member of the Five-Timers Club, made a surprise appearance to present Harrelson with the club's traditional Five-Timers smoking jacket.

After the episode aired, Harrelson's monologue received a mixed reaction online. Some Twitter users praised the actor's apparent jab at the COVID-19 vaccine while many mainstream media outlets including The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone and The Washington Post criticized Harrelson for promoting "conspiracies."

The monologue also drew a reaction from Elon Musk, who tweeted "So based. Nice work @nbcsnl!"

In another tweet, Musk suggested the comments were spot on and reflective of life in the U.S. over the last few years.

When one Twitter user warned for people to "get ready for the meltdowns," Musk said: "Maybe they [media outlets] don’t realize that their propaganda is wrong?"

Harrelson later taped an appearance on "Late Night With Seth Meyers" during which he joked about his appearance on "SNL."

After Harrelson quipped that he remembered "nothing at all" about hosting the show on Saturday, Meyers asked if he remembered the "high of hosting" and whether it felt the same even though it was his fifth time.

"Oh, there was a serious high of hosting going on," the longtime cannabis activist said with a laugh.

"Everyone in the dressing room had a whole high of hosting" he added. "Thick with — anyway."

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Meyers then asked Harrelson about his West Hollywood weed dispensary, The Woods, and pulled out a copy of a Los Angeles billboard ad for the store that featured a photo of Harrelson as a young man. He was pictured shirtless and wearing a pair of red swim trunks.

"This is an old photo of you. And I was thinking what would this young man think if you told him that in the future, you are going to own a legal marijuana dispensary?" Meyers asked.

"Well, at the time, he didn't smoke," Harrelson said while pointing at the ad. "So, he would have been like, ‘No way.’"

"I was very religious at that time," he said. The "Zombieland" actor said that he was working as a lifeguard at a church camp when the photo was taken.

"I used to go to church," he added. "Someone sent that to The Woods, and we were like, ‘Let's just use this.'"

"I will say, I would definitely have guessed weed before church camp lifeguard," Meyers joked as they both laughed.

Harrelson went on to say that The Woods was the "most beautiful place you've ever seen."

"I mean, it is stunningly beautiful," he added. "It's the most beautiful dispensary in the world. After that, I can't promise anything. But there's a ganja giggle garden out back where you can go out there and giggle."

While Harrelson's love of cannabis is well-known, his personal journey may come as a surprise to some of his fans. Here's a look at the Emmy Award-winner's religious upbringing, his relationship with his convicted contract killer father, his rise to fame with "Cheers" and continued career success, as well as his family life and his new movie, "Champions."

Born in Midland, Texas, Harrelson was raised in a deeply religious Presbyterian household. In a 2012 interview with GQ, he opened up about his family's faith: "I was very religious growing up," he said. "My mom still is. We went to church all the time, went to Bible study; we even did Bible study at my house."

Harrelson continued, "I went to a Presbyterian college, you know, I was in … all the way, and so I remember doing my first sermon when I was 17, I was in high school. It wasn't a full 25-minute sermon, but for like 10 minutes I got up and they let me do that and it was on faith."

In 2018, the actor revealed to Jimmy Kimmel that he had considered becoming a pastor before pursuing an acting career. He shared that he studied theology and drama at Hanover College, a Presbyterian school in Hanover, Indiana. One of his classmates was future Vice President Mike Pence.

"I knew him," Harrelson said of Pence. "We were both very religious. It was a Presbyterian college at the time, and I was there on a Presbyterian scholarship, and he was involved in the church activities."

"I was actually considering being a minister and then I just kind of went a different way," he added.

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Harrelson said that he had a positive impression of Pence when they attended college together: "I thought he was a very good guy," he said. "He was very religious, very committed. So, seeing in how I'm not quite in that ballpark now, I don't know how we'd get along because I think he's still quite religious, just a whole different brand of religious."

He added, "That kind of fervor that you really don't want. I don't."

Harrelson explained that he began to question his faith during his studies.

"I started to see how manmade the Bible was, and then I started saying, ‘I could put this whole thing on hold for a while.’"

The star said that he even began to question Christianity and the existence of God.

"I said, 'Let's just put this whole idea on hold, so I can have 20s and 30s of extreme hedonism,'" he added with a laugh.

When Kimmel asked if his religion was still on hold or if it had been "canceled," Harrelson replied, "I do believe there is a God now."

Harrelson's father, Charles Voyde Harrelson was a hit man who was convicted of killing federal judge John H. Wood Jr. in 1981. Texas drug lord Jamiel Chagra contracted Charles to kill Wood due to his harsh sentencing of drug traffickers. It was the first murder of a federal judge in the 20th century. Charles received two life sentences for the murder.

In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Harrelson opened up about his father and their relationship. He said that his parents separated when he was around 7 years old. Harrelson recalled that prior to being given a life sentence, his father "wasn't around too much."

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"He was gone a lot before that, in prison," he told the outlet. "Away and back. Away and back. It wasn’t like he was there all the time prior to that."

He remembered that he first learned that Charles was a contract killer after hearing about one of his father's previous trials on the radio.

"It was a wild realization," Harrelson said. Though he recalled that his mother was "well out of love" with his father at the time, he explained that they didn't speak of Charles frequently.

"I’ve got to give her credit because she never really soured us on him," he said of himself and his two brothers. "She didn’t talk negative about him, never, ever. And she could have – he wasn’t the greatest husband. Or father."

In a 2008 interview with the Financial Times, Harrelson said that his family was "poor" when he was growing up. "But my mom always took care of us [and] we always had food," he added. "It was a lot to raise three kids on her own as a secretary, but she did it, and she sure did look after us."

After learning of his father's arrest for Wood's murder in 1980, Harrelson attempted to contact him. The two stayed in touch until his father's death in 2007. Charles died in prison from a heart attack at the age of 68.

"I tried for years to get him out. To get him a new trial," Harrelson shared. He went on to say that he wasn't sure if his father "deserved" a new trial, but he was "just being a son trying to help his dad. Then I spent a couple of million beating my head against the wall."

Harrelson said that he and his father were on good terms until his death.

"We got along pretty good. When you can’t hang out and go to a pub, you know what I mean, it’s hard."

Harrelson made his breakthrough in Hollywood when he landed the role of bartender Woody Boyd in the hit NBC sitcom "Cheers." After joining the cast in 1985, he remained on the show until its eighth and final season in 1993. Harrelson received five Emmy Award nominations for his role on "Cheers," winning one for outstanding supporting character in a comedy series in 1989. He picked up another Emmy Award nomination when he reprised his role in the "Cheers" spinoff "Frasier" in 1999.

The actor also established a successful career on the big screen. He starred in hits including "Natural Born Killers," "White Man Can't Jump" and "Indecent Proposal." Harrelson's turn as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in 1996's "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" earned him a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.

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Some of his best-known films include "A Thin Red Line," "Wag the Dog," "No Country For Old Men," Anger Management," "Zombieland," "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and "The Hunger Games" trilogy, among others. Harrelson was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award among other accolades for his performance in 2009's "The Messenger."

In 2014, Harrelson starred in the HBO television series "True Detective." He received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in 2017's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." In 2021, he starred in the Marvel movie "Venom: Let There Be Carnage." 

Harrelson's 2022 credits include the Academy Award-nominated movie "Triangle of Sadness" and the action comedy "The Man From Toronto."

Harrelson was briefly married to Nancy Simon in 1985. In 1987, he met his future wife, Laura Louie, who accepted a job as his personal assistant. He told The Guardian that he eventually realized that he was in love with Louie while he was away in Africa, though he felt guilty because she was his assistant.

"I came back from Africa and I couldn’t even say I was in love with her because I was so nervous," he admitted in 2012. "I’d been sitting there with a guitar, so I wrote this song to her, and I sang it to her, and at the end of it she goes, ‘Woody, I’ve been in love with you for the last two and a half years.’ Then I picked her up and carried her in."

The two tied the knot in 2008 almost two decades after they first began dating. In 2017, Harrelson told the Hollywood Reporter, "I never believed in the concept of [marriage]. I just never believed that it made any sense, this long-term monogamy thing that humans do."

He added, "I just was incapable of long-term relationships. I was with whoever would have me. Then I met my wife."

In 1993, the pair welcomed their first daughter, Deni.

"I remember my daughter, Deni, coming along, and she was so pure and caring of everybody and everything," he said in a 2008 interview with Esquire. "And somehow, this little being managed to get around all the obstacles — the gun turrets, the walls, the moats, the sentries — that were wrapped around my heart. My heart at that time needed her. I think it’s the best thing going, parenthood."

Harrelson and Louie welcomed daughters Zoe in 1996 and Makani in 2006. They announced Makani's birth with a statement that read, "In this crazy patriarchal world we live in, we are doing our part to balance the energy. We are proud to announce the completion of our goddess trilogy with the birth of our third daughter, Makani Ravello, born on June 3rd."

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The actor reflected on the influence that his family has had on him in a 2018 interview with The Guardian.

"Before, I’d been gregarious – someone who enjoyed the company of others," he told the outlet. "But during "Cheers," the pressure of people that I didn’t know constantly wanting to talk to me made me recoil and become less outgoing. It had quite a negative impact. I went through a period of arrogance and having my head up my a--," he admits. "But, luckily, this life and my family – my wife and my daughters – they kind of loved me into a better human being."

Harrelson's latest project is Bobby Farrelly's solo directorial debut "Champions." The sports comedy is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film "Campeones," which was inspired by the true story of the Anderes team in Valencia that won 12 Spanish championships.

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In "Champions," Harrelson plays Markus Marakovich, a former minor-league basketball coach who receives a court order to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities as part of his community service. The team, which is named "Friends," has long aspired to make it to the Special Olympics. 

According to a synopsis for the movie, Marcus "soon realizes that despite his doubts, together, this team can go further than they ever imagined." The team's members are played by 10 actors who have disabilities, some of whom were first-time performers.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Harrelson said that he immediately bonded with the cast.

"These guys are so cool, so funny, so honest," he told the outlet.

Harrelson continued, ‘They’ll never tell you a lie. They’ll tell you a fib — 'your shoe’s untied’ — but their kindness and warmth, within a couple of hours I was hook, line and sinker a part of them. I haven’t had much experience with people with disabilities, so I didn’t know what to expect, and I’ve got to say, it was probably the most enjoyable experience I ever had making a movie."

"Champions" also stars Kaitlyn Olson, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin, Matt Cook and Madison Tevlin. The film is set to debut in theaters on March 10.