Ariana Grande in ‘Home Alone’: See What It Really Took to Pull Off One of the Most Elaborate ‘SNL’ Skits Yet

Ariana Grande was all for getting splattered with as much blood as possible for Saturday Night Live‘s spoof on Home Alone in December — but that was just one of many elaborate special effects the crew had to pull off to get everything just right.

Thanks to a behind-the-scenes video from the set of the sketch shoot posted Thursday (Jan. 8), fans get to see the lengths to which the pop star and SNL‘s cast and crew had to go in order to nail the tribute. First of all, the costumes had to be just right, with Grande morphing into Home Alone‘s Kevin McCallister in a perfect blonde wig and custom-sewn robe. Other cast members were dressed to look exactly like Kevin’s family.

But while the cameramen and director Mike Diva had to work nonstop to construct detailed replicas of the Home Alone house and recreate the exact timing of certain scenes in the original movie, the biggest challenge may well have been achieving dozens of special effects in a short span. In the SNL parody, Kevin’s pranks on the bad guys who invade his home are a lot more violent than the original version, which his family finds out the hard way once they finally get back.

In the sketch, we see Mikey Day’s head catch on fire, Sarah Sherman fall into a furnace and Bowen Yang get his arms ripped off by a hanging chainsaw, splattering blood on Grande’s face.

“Ariana was like, ‘I want as much blood as possible. I want to look like Carrie by the end of this thing,’” Diva recalled. “It takes a village to make Bowen’s arm fly off and spray blood everywhere.”

The Wicked star hosted the final SNL episode of 2025, which aired a few days before Christmas. It also served as Yang’s final episode as a member of the show’s cast.

The singer has hosted SNL a total of three times, making her debut in the role in 2016 and returning in 2024. Following the premiere of Wicked: For Good this past November, Grande is now gearing up to go on tour for the first time in years.

See the behind-the-scenes video above, and check out the final product on YouTube.

SNL kicks off its 2026 episodes on Jan. 17 with host Finn Wolfhard and musical guest A$AP Rocky.