Martin Short Recounts Almost Ruining Selena Gomez’s Wedding

Don’t invite Martin Short to your wedding. The comedian appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and explained that he was slightly misbehaved at the much-publicized nuptials of Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco last year.

Short described Gomez, his co-star on Only Murders in the Building, as “an extra child of mine.” “I adore her so much, and she found this guy and he’s the greatest guy,” Short told Jimmy Kimmel. “They have the greatest hang and they’re wildly in love. So the wedding was perfect and it was beautiful.”

He explained that on the night of the reception, which was held outdoors in Santa Barbara under a group of tents, he made a misstep. “It was a big, big party,” he said. “Imagine a stage and dance floor and musicians and big, big tents. And at the back of the tent were these individual seating areas with couches and chairs.”

Short’s group of friends from Only Murders in the Building, including Steve Martin and Paul Rudd, gathered in one of these areas. Also in the area: a small wedding cake. “I just assumed there was a wedding cake for each section,” Short said. When Martin said he was leaving, Short, a few cocktails in and fork in hand, said, “Oh Steve, you can’t leave yet without a piece of wedding cake.”

“And I cut the wedding cake on one side and then cut it on the other, and then all the people in our group screamed, ‘Marty!’” he recalled. “It was the wedding cake.” Kimmel showed a photo of the mangled cake, which Short had tried to repair with his fork. “This was bad,” Short admitted. “This was about an hour before it was to be presented.”

Although Short considered just leaving, the chef was able to mostly repair it and Gomez and Blanco cut the cake as usual when it was time. “It ended up being very like a Hollywood wedding cake in that it was beautiful but now it had had a little work done,” Short said.

Short and Martin wanted to keep the incident a secret from Gomez. “But then as I was leaving Selena came by [and said], ‘Hey Marty, I hear you tried to eat my cake!’” Short said.

Gomez and Blanco officially tied the knot in a private ceremony on Sept. 27. The couple got engaged in December 2024 after more than a year of dating. The wedding included numerous famous attendees, including Taylor Swift, who gave a speech.

“I did make a speech, but I actually made a point not to mention anything about my engagement,” Swift recalled on The Tonight Show afterwards. “I did do some light teasing about the way we used to dress in 2008, the year that we met. Because we met when we were teenagers in 2008. It was quite a year. Let me tell you. It was the year of deep, deep V-necks.”