“I’m Out, Motherf*cker!” Did ‘The Mandalorian’ Really Drop an F-Bomb?

Star Wars is at its best when it’s about puppets and/or critters being rascally. Yoda playing tug of war with R2-D2, Salacious Crumb being a little stinker, the Jawas going ham on some wooly egg yolk — the weirder the creature and odder the moment, the better. The Mandalorian has been a primo example of this principle thanks to the antics of Grogu, the pop culture phenomenon formerly known as Baby Yoda. The Mandalorian Season 3 doubled down on critter antics by bringing in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s pint-sized MVP Babu Frik (“Hey-hey!”) and pairing him — or at least some members of his species, the Anzellans — with Grogu. Cute antics aside, this pairing may have resulted in one of the nastiest moments in the entire Star Wars franchise. SPOILERS ahead, sorta!

The Mandalorian “Chapter 23: The Spies” re-introduces droid IG-11 with a whole new function. Unable to repair his memory circuit and override his lethal programming, the Anzellan droid repair crew turned him into a suit of armor — essentially a walking, robotic vehicle for a diminutive driver. Yes, they made a Krang suit and named it IG-12. Anyway — after showing off their creation, the Anzellan mechanic hops out and comes dangerously close to Grogu. If you’ll recall, this is what happened the last time these two met:

Determined to not let this happen again, the Anzellan sidles around Grogu and says, “Bad baby, no squeezie!” before taking off into a sprint and muttering something in alien gibberish. Or is it gibberish? Some viewers think they heard something explicit in the Anzellan’s mutterings.

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Does this Anzellan swear in the new episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian? 😱 #starwars #starwarsfan #starwarstiktok #mando #themandalorian #mandalorian #babyyoda #pedropascal #foryou #fyp #fypシ

♬ original sound – BespinBulletin.com

That clip is not doctored. That’s how it sounds in the episode. If you’re listening for it, it really does sound like this Anzellan says, “I’m out, motherfucker!” If any character’s gonna drop the F-bomb in Star Wars, it should come from a puppet. I’m just surprised an Anzellan got to say it before Salacious Crumb.

Okay, but really: does this Anzellan really say “I’m out, motherfucker”? It’s impossible to know what was going through voice actor Shirley Henderson’s mind as she provided words to this terrifying encounter, but there are two strikes against this being a canonical curse: one — this is subtitled as “(SPEAKS ANZELLAN)” and not “I’m out, motherfucker”; and two — the Star Wars galaxy has its own curse words, like “dank farrik,” “e chu ta,” “sleemo,” and “poodoo.” So even if this Anzellan is phonetically saying something that sounds like “muthah-fuck-ah,” the word probably doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in English.

This is why it’s way, way more likely that this is just some gibberish that Henderson squealed into a microphone that was then run through some filters or altered by sound designers. We’re just hearing “I’m out, motherfucker” because it sounds like that and it fits within the context of the scene. But if that Anzellan is saying “motherfucker,” then this cat is saying “well hi!” in a southern accent.

Decider has reached out to Disney for comment/clarification, because we’re journalists.