This was posted in the O.J. thread, and there were a lot of hosts!
My first thought was Richard Pryor. Controversial, yes, also a great host.
My second thought was Dice Clay.
Was Sinead O’Connor a host? If so, she qualifies.
Andrew Dice Clay and Elon Musk
…Literally one of the worst ranked and disliked Presidents in history hosted this show. So…
She was the musical guest
Millard Fillmore?
Argh, I was just composing a thread on this, and the OP ninja’d me (I had been doing a post on hosts and musical guests). Here’s what I had been working on:
The ones that immediately come to mind for me, other than OJ and a certain Presidential candidate at the time, are, in no particular order:
Milton Berle: who showed up swinging around his famously huge…ego, dissing all the writer’s jokes, ad-libbing his own lame jokes, and just generally being a pompous ass, getting himself permanently banned by Lorne.
Sinead O’Connor: I remember watching live when she ripped up the photo of the Pope. I’m a lapsed Catholic, but at the time it didn’t seem particularly outrageous to me. I wasn’t sure exactly what she was protesting, but it seemed like a not unreasonable protest move that a punky, political musician might be expected to do. David Spade had an amusing anecdote about taking a piece of the pic he shared on his and Dana Carvey’s ‘Fly on the Wall’ podcast.
Morgen Wallen: the country singer who was cancelled from SNL at the last minute for violating Covid protocals, then got a second chance later on. Also was caught using the n-word, but that came out after he had hosted. Sounds like a terrific guy, in any case.
Kanye West: By all accounts in full ‘lapsed meds’ mode at the time, having had a meltdown before the show and had to be coaxed into performing, then showed up at the end wearing a MAGA hat.
Here’s an article with more. Feel free to share your anecdotes!
OJ was the reason for this thread, I would nominate Trump as the most controversial Host.
I would give Andrew Dice Clay and Musk strong mentions. I will add Kanye.
Oh yeah, forgot Musk, another one I should have thought of off the top of my head. He wasn’t nearly as controversial then, but I remember how stiff and alien-like he seemed while hosting.
I was going to mention Donald Trump but I see that others did already. So I’ll mention Shane Gillis, who hosted earlier this year, after being named as a new cast member in 2019 before offensive videos of him emerged and he was dropped within a week.
Three out of the four you list were musical guests not hosts.
That article lists a few that were controversial because of what they did on the show. I guess there are three categories. Ones who were controversial picks to host like Trump, those that caused controversy with their actions on the show like Segal and those who are controversial in retrospect like OJ.
On one of the anniversary shows Martin Short said that despite having been friends with Lorne Michaels for many years, he had only hosted SNL once. Then he added, “You know who else has only hosted the show once? Robert Blake.”
*Ahem*
But the OP only asks about hosts. You are guilty of thread drift. Guilty!
But, your honor, if it please the court, I was only posting the contents of what I had been working on separately before the quick-posting @SuntanLotion ninja’d me. I figured musical hosts were admissable evidence.
If a musical guest doesn’t fit, you must acquit!
(Prints out enlarged pics of @SuntanLotion and @Loach 's avatar images, then rips them up in protest 
)
Wasteful! We’re supposed to be paperless, remember? I loaded their avatars and tore up my laptop.
Oh yeah?
(Abruptly stops playing song and starts playing “Radio,Radio”)
Big deal, you just pissed off Lorne Michaels, not me. I like the song.